Kailashtila to supply 20 mmcfd gas from 10 May: Nasrul

Sylhet Gas Fields Limited (SGFL), a government-owned major gas company, is set to supply around 20 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) to the national grid from May 10.

"With the government's sincere efforts around 20 million cubic feet gas from Koilashtila gas field will be added to the national grid from May 10," State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told BSS.

He said after extraction from the seventh well of Kailashtila Gas Field in Sylhet it will be possible to extract 17-19 million cubic feet of gas from the field from May 10.

"I shared a good news regarding gas supply just before the Eid. Our state-owned Sylhet Gas Field Limited has discovered about 20 million cubic feet gas (per day)," Nasrul said on his facebook page.

Meanwhile, the ministry issued a press release and said that about 17-19 MMCFD gas and 187 barrel of condensates was confirmed through a work-over process by logging, perfection and testing in the lower gas sand zone of the Koilashtila gas field.

It expected that the current zone of the gas field will continue gas production for next several years, the ministry said, adding, the remaining recoverable gas reserves in the Koilashtila field is 758 billion cubic feet which could be gradually produced through different wells.

The state minister said that the gas exploration activities have been increased while initiatives have been taken to conduct both horizontal and vertical drillings.

"It will yield more results if deep drillings are possible to conduct," he added.

Nasrul said Koilashtila gas field is one of the five gas fields, which was purchased by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 9, 1975.

On the day in 1975, Bangabandhu government purchased five gas fields from multinational oil drilling company, Shell Oil Company, paying very little. Only 4.5 million pound sterling (17-18 crore taka of that period) was paid to get Bakhrabad, Titas, Rashidpur, Kailashtila and Habiganj gas fields state-owned, he said.

"There is no other example of purchasing such a huge reserve of gas for so cheap in world history," the state minister said, adding that so far seven wells have been drilled in the Koilashtila gas field of which two are now producing about 29 MMCFD gas.

A comparison of data from Petrobangla-the state-owned hydrocarbon corporation-shows that the country produced around 2324.7 mmcfd gas per day, of which three local companies produce around 691 mmcfd, two International Oil Companies (IOC) produce around 945 mmcfd and imports around 688.1 mmcfd per day.