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Cabinet to approve 3 PSCs tomorrow |
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News |
March
13, 2000 The
Cabinet at a meeting tomorrow will clear three Production Sharing
Contracts (PSCs) for oil and gas exploration in the country under the
Second Round Block Bidding, source said. It
was intended till Saturday that the two PSCs initialed earlier, on with
Pangaea for Block 8 and the other with the Tullow-Chevron-Texaco joint
venture for Block 9, would be cleared by Cabinet on Sunday (yesterday). As
last minute negotiations with Unocal on Bock 7 took a “positive turn
“, another PSC was initialed. It will be sent to the Cabinet along with
the two PSCs initialed earlier. After
Cabinet approval, the three PSCs will be sent to the Law Ministry and
National Board of Revenue for their clearance on “priority basis”. The
PSCs are likely to be signed during the visit of US President Bill
Clinton. Meanwhile
Malaysian national oil company Petronas which remained out of the Second
Round Block Bidding negotiations has expressed its interest to sign a PSC. Sources
said, representatives of Petronas arrived in the city yesterday and they
told Petrobangla that the company was interested in signing a PSC for
Block 11 only. Earlier,
Petronas showed lack of interest when the government at first offered it
to strike a partnership with Tullow in blocks 9 and 11. The government
finally offered Petronas and its partner Mobil to negotiate for Block 11
only. Petrobangla
Saturday initialed a PSC with Unocal for Block 7 on terms totally
different form those in the two ofther PSCs. As per its PSC, Unocal would
own the block for five years. If the company sees gas marketing and export
prospects during this period, it will start its work program. If
it sees no scope for expansion of gas market and permission for export,
Unocal will not undertake nay work program and the PSC will be
automatically terminated after give years. “This
PSC is just a showpiece,” observed a source. “The government is trying
to show some achievement to the US government by signing three PSCs. We
would soon start to worry whether these PSCs would be at all beneficial
for Bangladesh or not.” The
Second Round Block Bidding negotiations started in October 1997 amid much
enthusiasm of foreign oil companies. But government’s clear-cut favor to
financially weak Tullow for awarding it the most coveted blocks 9 and 11
led to delay in the negotiation process. Source:
The Daily Star.
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