Archive for December, 2011

Where science is the solution

Abdul Bayes

There is little shade of doubt that Bangladesh has made commendable progress in food grain production, especially rice. The total rice production reached 32 million tonnes in 2009/10 as compared to 25 million tonnes just five years back. Since Independence, production of rice tripled and the growth rate of rice outpaced the population growth rate during the same period of time. Taking into account wheat and maize, the total food grain production perked at 34 million tonnes in 2009/10. Needless to mention perhaps that the shinning success has come through the adoption of modern high yielding varieties (HYVs) with an yield level roughly three times the traditional varieties (TVs).

The advancement of science in the region of rice produced spectacular results in many countries, such as Bangladesh, where the specter of famine haunted every moment. With the help of mechanized irrigation, modern varieties are now spread over four-fifth of the cultivated land. Initially, this expensive package was led by the large and the medium land owners; small and marginal farmers remained as laggards. But at the moment, more than 80 per cent of the small and marginal farmers have learnt to adopt this to fight against poverty.

The leading institution for rice research in our country is Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) that has released a number of varities suitable to different production conditions. Despite remarkable success in the past, however, a dark cloud loomed large on the horizon of our happiness as a sizeable part of Bangladesh, known as drought and saline-prone areas, suffered due to the lack of scientific advancement suited to their ecology. As such, poverty level in these areas stood very high. As we can recollect, the infamous “monga” or “mora Kartik”, now almost on the wane in greater Rangpur District, used to steal newspaper headlines for its ferocity in terms of famine and hunger.

The scientists of the BRRI, with technical assistance from IRRI, is reported to have released three HYVs named BRRI dhan-55, BRRI dhan-56 and BRRI dhan-57. The first variety is a moderate salinity and cold-tolerant variety with an yield rate of 7.0 tonnes per hectare. This is higher than the most widely accepted HYV BRRI-dhan 28. Since the variety is tolerant of salinity and cold, it is suitable for production in the salinity-prone south and the cold-hit north. On the other hand, BRRI dhan-56 and BRRI dhan-57 are drought resistant varieties – a medicine for the smonga-hit regions. Farmers can now expect better harvest as the wet season ends and water becomes scarce. Specially BRRI dhan-56 can withstand rainless days up to one month and the grain matures in 107 and 110 days during Aman season even when the water table depth goes down to 70-80 cm. BRRI dhan-57 can withstand drought for up to three weeks but the grain matures even earlier – in 100 to 105 days. “This means jute farmers can go for late Aman production with this variety while potato growers can think of reaping the paddy quickly and free the land for winter vegetable prior to cultivation of the next boro rice”, a report in a national English daily said. We congratulate both BRRI and IRRI for developing varieties of paddy that would go a long way in mitigating the miseries of the farmers in southern and northern Bangladesh.

In this context, we can submit few important points to ponder with. First, science is the solution to our food crisis. As arable land is going down by 1.2 per cent per annum and 2.0 million people are joining the titanic total of more than 150 million each year, the only way to move forward is to cover the whole country with modern varieties of rice. It also means going for hybrid rice after taking due cognizance of the costs, tastes etc. Second, international collaboration in scientific advancement and technology borrowing could help a resource poor country to grapple with the issue of food security. Third, seeing the successes made by our scientists in developing newer varieties of rice, the government should devote more resources to agricultural research and extension services. In fact, development of research and extension services in rice could turn out to be the “real subsidy” for farmers than financial subsidy provided at the cost of devastating distortions and inequality.

Finally, time has come to shift the emphasis from ground water irrigation to surface water irrigation as, allegedly, water table is going down further with competing withdrawal of underground water. This means, we should provide more importance to the southern belt which is apparently the center of surface water irrigation. But mere irrigation will not suffice; salinity tolerant varieties – as has recently been released — must make a mark in those areas.

By and large, Bangladesh’s breakthrough in addressing the issues of food insecurity in the past, albeit a bleaker one, came on the heels of the development of a series of modern varieties of paddy. The coming years, and the ecologically diverse zones should witness high yielding varieties at a rapid pace. Only an earnest endeavour to scientific advancement in the field of rice research could provide farmers with the last laugh. And let the developments expand to other crops such as wheat, maize etc. For Bangladesh science is security.

The writer is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University. He can be reached at email: abdulbayes@yahoo.com

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=152446&date=2011-10-11

Importance of financial literacy

Farooq Sobhan

The importance of financial literacy is paramount in the age of the global financial crisis. Familiarity with the idea of saving and investing, and knowledge concerning shares, mutual funds, stock exchanges, and various forms of deposits can help a person face life’s financial inconveniences more strongly than ever before. Sound financial literacy can not only help people at a personal level, but it will also benefit the nation as a whole resulting in a more efficient and flexible economy.

In order to achieve this dream, the general population — especially the young people (i.e. students), should be educated at the secondary level about making strong financial decisions even before they actually are in a position to make them. However, this alone is not enough, as it needs to be complimented by a process which educates the teachers regarding the financial system and how one can benefit from a good understanding of it.

Bangladesh, among the many developing nations, has proved itself a strong competitor in the race towards globalisation. The country’s economy has been mostly resilient to global turmoil, and the subprime crisis has left little impact on Bangladeshi markets as it was not too deeply involved with the world economy. Nevertheless, the capital market here is getting more and more integrated with the rest of the world, and it won’t be long before another financial shock deeply hampers the performance of the country’s economy. The formal Bangladeshi education system is composed of three mediums, English, Bengali and Arabic (Madrassa), where the scope of financial literacy is limited.

The education level of the country is still not in line with international benchmark; moreover, the number of students who drop out of school before completion of their secondary level studies is also relatively high compared to the region. Therefore, there is a dire need to implement a system whereby the young people of the country can learn more about the benefits of using their money more wisely.

One of the problems that Bangladesh faces comes in the form of the teachers at the secondary level not being educated enough themselves on the subject of educating youths about personal finances. Thus, before financial literacy among students can be considered, it is imperative that the teachers know more about the goals and challenges of enlightening the young people regarding the challenges they would face as they make multifaceted financial decisions.

The Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting in Colombo in the year 2006, called upon the Secretariat to pursue work in the area of financial inclusion. This issue is relevant to most of the Commonwealth jurisdictions; the Secretariat’s work focuses on small states and poor vulnerable economies. The overall objective of these initiatives is to foster economic growth. Such programmes aim to bring banking services to the “unbanked” and to develop financial literacy courses for improving the ability of individuals to act more astutely and make more informed financial decisions.

In 2007, the Commonwealth Secretariat successfully completed a programme in which the focus was to train the teenagers on how to manage their money. The Secretariat’s financial literacy programme kicked off in the Caribbean, and over the last three years this project has educated young people about the benefits of using money more effectively. Since 2007 around 1,200 students in this region have benefitted from this project. More recently, the Secretariat has focused more closely on ‘Train-Trainers’ initiative which have reached trainers in 21 commonwealth countries throughout the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific.

Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) has extensive experience in working on issues relating to private sector development and in acting as a catalyst for bringing about policy reforms in Bangladesh. BEI through its ten years of research and advocacy experience has many success stories to its name. This includes donor mapping on skills development initiatives, business confidence survey, investment climate assessment, media diversification and liberalization, trade and investment, research on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), civil services training programme (CSTP), corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, advocacy programme for the introduction of a Tax Ombudsman, introduction of guidelines on corporate governance by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) among others, where BEI’s role was key in bringing about various policy reforms in Bangladesh.

In working on these issues, BEI has also established meaningful relationship with key opinion leaders and policy makers in the government and has established strong ties with elites in the private sector. As such BEI is in a unique position to implement this project and can play an important role in achieving the vision of Commonwealth Secretariat on Financial Literacy.

The objective of the project is to train high school teachers (English, Bengali and Arabic (Madrassa) medium) on issues related to savings, investment and protection against risk and to demonstrate how financial products can assist in doing so. The teachers would be then encouraged to disseminate the acquired knowledge to their students. This will be achieved by organizing ‘Train the Trainers’ workshops for teachers from the above mentioned three categories of schools with an overall objective to enable students to use financial information and resources in a more confident manner.

……………………………………………………..

The writer is President, Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, Dhaka. He can be reached at

e-mail: fsobhan@hotmail.com

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=152443&date=2011-10-11

BPC’s red balance skyrockets
Incurs Tk 72.08b loss in fiscal 2010-11

M Azizur Rahman

The aggregate loss of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) skyrocketed to Tk 72.08 billion in the last fiscal year (FY) 2010-11, up by 251 per cent over the previous fiscal’s Tk 20.49 billion.

The purchase of a substantially higher quantity of petroleum products from the international market at increased prices and the sale of the same in the domestic market at below procurement cost, were largely responsible for such hefty losses of the BPC during the year, a top official said Friday.

He said BPC imported around 5.10 million tonnes of petroleum products, including refined and crude oil, in FY 2010-11. The quantity was 38.66 per cent higher than that of 3.75 million tonnes imported in fiscal 2009-10.

The corporation’s imports increased mainly in order to keep the newly-installed diesel and furnace oil-fired power plants operational. The demand of other sectors including industries, irrigation, transportation and residential apartments also rose during the year, according to an official source.

Concerns over the global supply situation, in the wake of volatile political developments in the oil-rich Middle East and north African countries, also led to a surge in oil prices in the international market. That furthermore contributed to the BPC’s massive operational losses last fiscal, said the official.

Bangladesh did not increase domestic petroleum prices for most part of the last fiscal, in line with the uptrend of the oil prices in the international market, notwithstanding repeated urgings by the multilateral capital donors for going for appropriate adjustments of domestic prices of oil products.

The government, however, raised last time the domestic petroleum prices on May 6 this year to help reduce losses of cash-strapped BPC and to offset the impact of higher oil prices in the international market on the domestic economy.

Since then, diesel is being sold at Tk 46 per litre, kerosene, at Tk 46 per litre, petrol, at Tk 76 per litre, octane, at Tk 79 per litre and furnace oil, at Tk 42 per litre in the domestic market.

BPC Chairman Md Muqtadir Ali expressed the fear that the corporation’s loss might mount further as the country would require to import more petroleum products in future to meet the growing domestic demand.

Officials said in the past ten years of its operation, BPC made profit only in fiscal 2008-09 and fetched then Tk 3.22 billion in operational profits when oil prices in the international market showed a downward trend, following global economic meltdown.

BPC incurred losses of Tk 95.53 billion in fiscal 2007-08, Tk 26.28 billion in fiscal 2006-07, Tk 31.67 billion in fiscal 2005-06, Tk 28.99 billion in fiscal 2004-05, Tk 9.67 billion in fiscal 2003-04, Tk 5.21 billion in fiscal 2002-03 and Tk 6.45 billion in 2001-02, statistics revealed.

Earlier, the corporation’s loss in fiscal 2007-08 was significantly at a higher level, as domestic petroleum prices were then disproportionately low, despite a steep rise of oil prices in the international market, said a BPC official.

Bangladesh’s petroleum imports have been rising significantly as it is trying to diversify its electric power sources by setting up dozens of diesel- and furnace oil-run power plants to reduce dependence on natural gas for electricity generation.

Country’s natural gas-supply shortfall of around 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) is also forcing many industries to convert their gas-burnt generators and boilers into diesel- or furnace oil-fired ones. This has been inflating the domestic petroleum demand, industry insiders said.

Currently, around 81 per cent of the country’s power plants are now running on natural gas and the remaining 19 per cent are using furnace oil, coal, hydro-power and gas oil.

Electricity generation by renewable energy sources like solar panel, windmill and biogas is still negligible.

The overall generation is now hovering around 4,500 megawatts (mw) against the demand for over 6,500 mw.

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=143035&date=2011-07-16

Donors can fund CCS for coal-fired power plants: UK envoy

Britain’s climate change envoy has said energy-starved Bangladesh could lobby donor partners to finance coal-fired power stations that are part of the first wave of “carbon capture and storage” (CCS), a means of mitigating the effect of fossil fuel emissions on global warming, reports UNB.

John Ashton, who acts as the British foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change, believes it is “clearly not reasonable” to expect countries like Bangladesh to bear the additional costs that arise from implementing the technology for CCS, but that the funds becoming available to tackle climate change in the form of “fast-track funds” can be used to finance “one of the first demonstrations of CCS” in the world here.

“That would be an interesting proposition to make to the World Bank, DFID. I would encourage it, I would do what I can to support it,” said Mr Ashton, who has been actively involved in climate change issues for almost 15 years now.

While acknowledging the supply of electricity to meet rising demand as a “particular bottleneck” for the Bangladesh economy, Mr Ashton would not lose sight of the fact that coal is “right at the heart of the problem” as far as climate change is concerned. According to him, countries face two choices for a sustainable future: either stop using coal, or move towards technologies that will “make coal carbon-neutral”.

CCS is part of the second choice, and with Bangladesh sitting on top of 2.5 billion tonnes of high quality coal in its northern districts, may contain the answer to unlocking some of the obstacles that have stood in the way of many coal-based projects getting off the ground.

Mark Muller, an experienced mining geophysicist, carried out an independent technical review of the country’s coal reserves recently that put the total figure between 3.2 and 4.7 billion tonnes. Some say that is enough to serve the energy needs of the country for the next fifty years. But a lack of vision and political commitment has held back the development of this abundant resource.

Well into its third year now, the present government has still not finalised a new national coal policy to replace the provisions in the national energy policy formulated by the last BNP-led government in 2004, even though it has consistently said that it is close to doing so.

Mr Ashton, who was talking to the media on the second day of his first visit to Bangladesh on Friday, believes that with CCS, a way to move forward with coal-based projects that deals with the argument that they contribute to global warming, has opened itself up for the country.

“The technology is proven, it’s just that they haven’t been combined with power generation on an industrial scale. But it’s not something that’s over the horizon. As long as the geological conditions are there to support CCS, we know how to do it,” Mr Ashton said.

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=143050&date=2011-07-16

Motivating students in learning process

M Ashraf Al Haq

Very recently I joined the University Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). I am back in Bangladesh after 26 years living in different continents – learning, understanding experiencing and engaging in different forms of experiential learning and enjoying enormously. At the moment I am teaching three courses, but teaching entrepreneurship – is a real challenging one. In all courses we have to include a project study plus class participation, home assignments, quiz and midterm and above all a final exam to ensure that the student deserves a grade that he has earned through real hard and smart work. But teaching entrepreneurship gave me an added taste to incorporate a scenario, that – creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship must be incorporated through active motivation and making it interesting to students to do an individual plus a group assignment, in addition to presentation of course contents in the class and implementing those lessons learned in their assignments.

Firstly it was hard to make the students understand as the gap I had in understanding their need, and to adapt to a new challenge. But luckily in two to three weeks, they did comprehend the importance of doing an assignment, which can be challenging and can be implemented if support is there. We have Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department, Electronics, Telecommunication Engineering (ETE) department, Multimedia Science Journalism department, and all the departments are willing that the students come up with nice innovative ideas which can be created and hence will be viewed if it can be implemented in small test cases in real world. Such motivational exploration gave the students to think wise and work harder to achieve a vision to complete the task well before the semester ends. ‘As a trainer we need to inspire the trainees to share and gather and keep pace with ever evolving learning hitches that we can synchronise and visualise from a little to medium to maximum attainment of self learning goals and objectives’. Furthermore, asking questions, and making a point to raise inquisitive questions is important, in class or in home assignment, will change their thinking tremendously.

The students are in their third year from diverse background and majoring in different fields. Some of them are majoring in Human Resources (HR), some in marketing, some in finance, and some in accounting and others from multimedia department. Many students live 50 miles away, and it takes them to come to university more than three hours, and when they return back home it is well beyond ten in the night. Many students have to work more than 25 hours a week to make sure to be able to pay tuition in time, though many of them do receive a good stipend to maintain their monthly expenses.

When I was teaching in Management School of Multimedia University in the 90′s, I experienced that, what counts in teaching business students is sharing the experiencing of the real world scenario in the class room, as just theories will be soon out of their mind. As a great thinker, Confucius in 450 BC said, “Tell me and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.” So in that notion I was particularly interested in, and that is why I want to implement and change the paradigm in the students’ learning process. Students have thus started to understand that group study and group work, motivate them to learn and share easily and make the hurdle easier to win. It was difficult just among few students at the start, and they thought to pursue individually rather than as a team, but making them understand that in the real world it is a team oriented approach, so they decided to cooperate at the end.

My firm belief is that I learn from teaching students, my philosophy is learning by sharing. I am a learner and I learn how to share what I know, and eager to learn what I do not know, at least I would not know in advance what might be the response that I will get while sharing. So I am not in a business of teaching, but learning through knowledge sharing and elaborating and just opening the concept to my students. As a master of ceremonies (MC) of a meeting, I might have less to say than more to listen and understand, similarly I want to make my class where students present the topics, share their ideas and understanding, and it is rather a student oriented than a teacher oriented class that I see as my ideal class setting.

We all are created with huge talent, vision, and creative idea. But this can only be tapped – through an external positive push to make that positivism come out. Though the semester not over yet, but I see the mission has been very nicely achieved. The fear of trial and error has eroded and a sense of accomplishment is heading as they have successfully identified key areas where they feel they can make inroads and contribute positively to society. Solomon Ibn Gabriol once said, ‘The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.’

As there is a student seminar presentation to share their findings, they are very eager to prove, what a good model they have created. I believe, ‘Inspiration needs to be transpired to action to make us motivated as a long term belief and not a short term fun’. Let me share two of the social business models that my two groups of students doing, in brief.

One group of students working on how a formula can be created to make a model rural village sustain from the present pressure of modernisation, in elaborating a chart of traditional village that might be expected when a group of eco tourists look into Bangladesh, as the country is trying its best to project as an eco friendly country to the world. The other group of students trying to promote the beauty of footpath, as the country is heading to an explosion over crowdedness in the cities, so as to incorporate the culture of hiking, biking, and enjoying the concept of promoting the ideal footpath, as a centre of business and eco-tourism, and so on, and explaining to the authority the importance of making, maintaining and managing good friendly footpaths throughout the city’s main linkage points.

If these ideas come out as good, they have an intention to join a competition organised by the Social Business group, where the winner can head to Vienna in November, and the fund providers are there with huge interest to implement such ideas or at least branding such ideas worldwide.

As I have mentioned earlier, not all will be interested, but majority took that challenge and saw an opportunity of international competition and recognition. Some students are very busy working very hard at odd hours for maintaining tuition, and many others commute from distance, but in general the overwhelming majority has an eagerness to do the individual and group competition and show the might in creating a lasting model.

The weaker and unenthusiastic students are joined with stronger ones. The mission was to create a harmonic balance, the result is diverse. In some groups, the stronger ones made the weaker ones learn and share as unavoidable mode of learning, in some groups the weaker ones are more influential in intimidating the stronger group members to flirt unnecessarily. But thankfully that came to my notice, though I admire naughtiness, but the theme must not be forgotten, and I took extra watchful eye and remedial measures so as to get the maximum attainment from all group members. I feel that I am learning through this experiment to a significant extent. ‘Inspiration is heavenly, but the guidance that we can give will motivate the learners to acquire. But the question remains, how to systematically guide and make a valuable notion to the learning processes.’

Our friendly departments such as Media Science and Journalism, electronics (ETE) departments, and many of our colleagues made the task much easier through advice, recommendation, support and help in every possible way. Our CSE (IT) department also played an important role in creating awareness and sharing ideas of exploration in making the projects happen. I thank all of them for their continuous support.

Furthermore, my advice would be that if anyone is willing to teach a course on entrepreneurship, one should take it as an extra challenge of gearing the students to come up with ideas that will change the students world view in leaning and sharing ideas and implementing it. ‘…motivation is related to a positive belief system and admiration. This will decrease the level of stress and improve the environment of leaning’.

Another issue is the conception on reward. ‘A notion of reassuring the progress and reward system, will build the inner inspiration turned motivation sustain longer.’

The writer is a Senior Lecturer, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), and can be reached at email: ashraf.haq@ulab.edu.bd

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=142963&date=2011-07-16

Search for hydrocarbon moves at a snail’s pace

Shahiduzzaman Khan

Bangladesh’s hydrocarbon reserve is depleting fast. It is likely to face acute energy crisis after 2015 if no new reserve is found immediately. The situation has gone to such an extent that all concerned appear to have accepted the likely devastating effect of the gas supply crunch on the country’s economy as a fait accompli.

According to a conservative estimate, the national demand will be around 50,000 mmcf by 2020, if the target of 7.0 per cent growth in GDP is to be met. For that reason, around 24 trillion cubic feet (TCF) hydrocarbon resources need to be discovered by 2025. Very recently Petrobangla said that supplying gas to the industries was creating a gas crisis of around 250 mmcf in the country. Even after gas rationing in the CNG filling stations and the fertilizer factories, the situation is not improving.

With the current reserve being at around 15 TCF in the country, the national demand can be met until 2025 without providing it to the industries. However, if the industries continue to be supplied with gas, half of this stock will reportedly be finished within four years. In fact, the entire reserve of gas will be entirely consumed by 2019 if it goes on like this. The situation may aggravate further as gas demand is rising while production remains the same.

It’s a fact that the country has failed to undertake new gas exploration drive over the last couple of years, except taking up some initiatives to increase gas production from the existing fields on a fast tract basis. On the contrary, the government is serious about power sector and has already awarded contracts to generate more than 2,500 megawatts (mw) electricity. The search for discovering hydrocarbon by Petrobangla and its subsidiary organisations has been moving at a snail’s pace since long.

The government is now importing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from Qatar to meet the gas supply shortage. A project to build an LNG terminal has also been taken to receive LNG containers and transmit gas to the national pipeline. It is scheduled to be completed by next year. Yet all indications suggest that 100-kilometre pipeline to transmit the processed gas to the national grid would not be ready within the stipulated timeframe.

Indeed gas crisis is creating a ripple effect on the country’s economy, as hundreds of factories could not go into operation and many power plants still remain idle, hindering its industrial growth. Fertiliser production is being jeopardised as many producing units are failing to operate due to gas supply crunch. Compressed National Gas (CNG) filling stations are being forced to remain closed for four hours daily to divert gas to such factories. Six-hour shutdown will be in force during the month of Ramadan. Still the situation is unlikely to improve.

Lack of adequate pipelines to transmit the available gas is a stumbling block to streamlining its supply countrywide. Early last year, some contracts were reportedly awarded to transmit gas to the country’s gas-deprived western zone. Until now, construction of these pipelines is going on at a snail’s pace. It was scheduled to be completed by now.

The country signed an agreement with US oil giant ConocoPhillips for offshore hydrocarbon exploration. Another IOC, Santos, has started work to drill three wells in the Bay from October next. It has awarded Seadrill a contract for jack-up drilling rig ‘offshore resolute,’ to conduct drilling programme in the offshore gas structures. There is also a move to award several deep-sea blocks and a shallow water block to foreign oil companies. But the process of awarding the blocks is yet to gain momentum.

Geologists believe that the Bangladesh territory in the Bay holds the biggest oil and gas prospect. Apparently, the country is now exposed to a regional oil and gas politics. However, according to foreign ministry source, the maritime boundary is expected to be fixed by next year. Country’s move to mark its maritime boundary has so far been limited to ‘plans’ to take expert help from the US, the UK and Australia for the job.

Both Myanmar and India began oil and gas exploration in their offshore zones in the Bay several years ago and both succeeded in discovering large gas fields. Bangladesh remains miles away in the race and failed to find its deep sea emerging as a new frontier. Nevertheless, fixing maritime boundary is a tricky matter as the coasts of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar follow a curve, which implies overlapping of territory. As per the international practice in such a case, the neighbours should inform each other and reach a mutual understanding before exploring such areas.

More than 97 per cent of the country’s total gas output comes from the onshore gas fields while only 3.0 per cent comes from the lone offshore gas field Sangu. Production in Sangu is depleting fast. International Oil Companies (IOCs) were awarded 12 hydrocarbon blocks, both offshore and onshore, since gas exploration began in the country in late ’90s. But they now hold only six blocks after recently giving up rights on the rest.

All IOCs operating in Bangladesh sell their gas output to Petrobangla, which later sells it to public and private companies through state-owned distribution firms. Recently Santos won the right to sell gas to private companies. On the ground of poor gas reserves in Sangu and lower price, it got the rights to sell gas directly to the private parties. Allowing such right to the IOCs may prove disastrous if all IOCs demand similar facilities. The activities of BAPEX and its subsidiary organisations may be severely constrained then. However, as most of the renowned IOCs are reluctant to take part in hydrocarbon bidding at a large scale, the government has little option to go for alternative in this connection.

Unless BAPEX makes major stride for exploring gas in Netrokona-Sunamganj belt early next year, chances of overcoming the gas crisis within 2014 are very slim, according to experts. Magnama and Hatiya structures have reportedly a large presence of gas which was evident after conducting a 3D survey there. Gas exploration in most of the country’s 46 onshore blocks remained frozen since 1998 after the High Court injunctions.

At a recent roundtable, the energy adviser was upbeat about tapping the coal and gas resources in the country. Besides, he said the government is planning to acquire some coal and gas fields abroad to ensure long-term energy security. As the country is planning to generate 30,000 to 50,000 megawatts of power in the next two decades, the government is contemplating acquiring assets in other countries.

There is no denying that Bangladesh reels under severe energy crisis. The present government has already passed its half of its term. Many gigantic tasks have to be accomplished during the rest of the period. When the country’s domestic energy resources are yet to be tapped to their full potentials, how far is it logical to go for exploiting energy resources abroad? It is really unwise to acquire gas and coal fields abroad without fully exploiting the country’s own underground resources.

The situation demands extensive exploration on both onshore and offshore blocks in the wake of soaring gas crunch, caused mainly by lack of drilling in prospective fields. Harnessing gas along with power is of crucial importance at this critical time of huge energy crunch.

szakhan@dhaka.net

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=143067&date=2011-07-17