Amid the growing energy crisis, Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (BAPEX) has discovered a new gas reserve of around 700 billion cubic feet near Shahbazpur in Bhola, raising the overall gas reserve of the area to around one trillion cubic feet, reports UNB.

“There’s good news for the country as BAPEX has found initially estimated some 700 billion cubic feet of gas reserve in Bhola. If the new gas reserve is added to the previous ones, the total gas reserve of that area will reach around one trillion cubic feet,” said Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam.

The cabinet secretary said this while briefing reporters at Bangladesh Secretariat yesterday after the Cabinet meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Office with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair. He said the news on the new gas reserve was revealed at the cabinet meeting.  “We have done the log test but not the fire test yet. We will know the exact amount of the gas reserve in the newly found well after conducting the test. Our estimate shows   gas reserve of around 700 billion cubic feet near Shahbazpur in Bhola,” BAPEX managing director Md. Nowshad Islam told The Independent, adds our correspondent.

“While digging our rig hit 3,500 meter bellow the ground where gas pressure was 5,000 PSI,” the BAPEX MD added. Earlier, on 7 September, Gazprom International completed the construction and testing of the Shahbazpur-3 well located at the field on Bhola Island in the Padma River delta in southern part of the country.

A gas influx rate of 544,000 cubic metres per day was obtained following tests on the producing horizons exposed by drilling. Shahbazpur-3 is the penultimate well built by Gazprom International under two drilling contracts signed in 2012 with BAPEX, BGFCL and SGFL, subsidiaries of Bangladesh’s state oil and gas corporation Petrobangla. It is 3,902 metres deep. In total, under these contracts Gazprom International will build and commission ten gas production wells at six of Bangladesh’s gas fields.

Shafiul Alam said the Cabinet was also apprised about the annual report on various ministries and divisions for the fiscal year 2016-2017.

Revealing the major highlights of the report, he said the country’s export earnings for the FY17 totalled $34.8468 billion, which was 1.72 per cent higher than the previous fiscal year while the tax collection for the 16-17 fiscal year was Tk 1,86,273 crore, up 7.75 per cent than the previous year’s.

During the last fiscal year, the Cabinet

Secretary said, some 8,94,054 Bangladeshi workers went abroad with a 30.61 per cent rise from the previous year, but inward remittance inflow fell 14.48 per cent in the FY17 compared to the previous fiscal. The GDP growth reached 7.24 per cent in FY17, up from 7.11 per cent in FY16, while the per capita income in the last fiscal year increased to $1602 from previous year’s $1465.

In the last fiscal year, the real production of wheat, corn, potatoes, onion, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, fish, and coal increased compared to the FY16.

Besides, the highest demand and production of power increased by 443 MW in the last fiscal year compared to the previous year (FY16) with the setting up of some 44,497 kilometers of new distribution lines, 543 circuit kilometers new transmission lines.

MK/DG