ConocoPhillips, Tullow bag Bangladesh gas contract in Bay of Bengal
25 Aug 2009
The government of Bangladesh has awarded a production sharing exploration contract for three offshore gas blocks to ConocoPhillips and Tullow Oil.
After evaluating bids from other international firms that included Korean National Oil Corp, Comtrack Services Limited from Cyprus, Australia's Santos, Longwoods Resources Limited and China's CNOOC, the country's state-run Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation, known as Petrobangla, awarded the contract to Houston-based ConocoPhillips and Ireland's Tullow Oil.
The Bangladesh government leased two deep-water offshore gas blocks to ConocoPhillips and one shallow water block to Tullow for oil and gas exploration in the Bay of Bengal.
Conoco Phillips has won the bid for deep-sea blocks DS-08-10, where it has agreed to invest $442.63 million, while Tullow got the shallow water block SS-08-05 and has offered to invest $50 million.
The army-backed interim government had taken a decision last year to conduct an offshore bidding for exploring oil and gas in Bay of Bengal in wake of worsening energy shortage and to stop India and Myanmar from encroaching on its claim of 200 nautical miles of territorial water in the Bay of Bengal.
According to Petrobangla, the two companies will not conduct any exploration beyond the area of the three blocks since it may overlap with the blocks of neighbouring India and Myanmar.