Bhola field: Natural gas extracted for tests

A team has begun extracting natural gas for testing from the ‘Shahbazpur East-1’ gas field recently discovered by the Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company or BAPEX in Bhola.

A ‘drill test team’ began extracting the gas around 10am on Wednesday, Shahbazpur Gas Field Deputy General Manager Md Hasanuzzaman told bdnews24.com.

The gas pressure at the time was nearly 5,000 PSI.

The discovery of the gas field, estimated to have 700 billion cubic feet of reserves, was announced on Oct 30.

“There's no doubt that it's a big gas field. We have not discovered a gas field like it in recent times,” BAPEX Managing Director Md Nowshad Islam had said.

The existing Shahbazpur gas field produces around 35 million cubic feet a day, according to BAPEX. The reserves of this field are estimated at 35 billion cft.

According to state-owned oil and gas corporation Petrobangla, the proven reserves of the 26 gas fields in Bangladesh stand at 13.6 trillion cft as of Jan 1, 2016.

Bangladesh produces 2.7 billion cft natural gas a day against a demand of 3.4 billion.

A little over 58 percent of the gas goes to the power plants, 17 percent to factories, 11 percent to households, 7 percent to fertilizer manufacturers and another 6 percent to automobiles.

To meet the increasing demand, Bangladesh has decided to import liquefied natural gas or LNG and has already started construction of terminals.