Cairn Energy steps up exploration offshore Bangladesh

Offshore staff

(Asia-Pacific) - Cairn Energy announced plans for further exploration and development drilling in Bangladesh's offshore gas field.

The company plans to spend another $50 million over the next year or so on exploration work in the country, according to CEO Sir Bill Gammell .

Cairn Energy is currently operating Bangladesh's only offshore gas field at Sangu in the Bay of Bengal, off Chittagong port, which has been in production since June 1998 and supplies up to 170 MMcf of gas daily to the Bangladesh national grid.

In addition, Cairn is exploring in blocks 5 and 10, where new seismic data has been acquired, and is participating with Chevron in block 7, where a seismic campaign recently began.

It has identified a new possible gas field at Char Jabbar under Noakhali district in block 10 with an indication of 2.8 tcf of gas reserves.

Cairn also conducted seismic surveys at Meghnama and at Hatiya under block 16. The possible gas reserves would be 3.5 tcf at Meghnama and 1.8 tcf at Hatiya.

01/24/06