Dhaka offers ten gas drilling sites to Russian firm

State-run oil, gas and mineral resources corporation Petrobangla has offered Gazprom the rights to drill at least 10 wells in different gas fields after the “sudden withdrawal” by Polish company, Poszukiwania Naftyi i Gazu Krakow (Oil and Gas Exploration Company Cracow) that claimed the gas fields at Titas and Rashidpur were leaking, the New Age said Wednesday.

The offer to Russia to combine these five wells with five more wells was made at a meeting here Tuesday after the Polish firm departed and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed her concern at the delay in implementing fast-track projects by Petrobangla and its subsidiaries.

She pressed Petrobangla's top officials to take serious measures so that it was able to supply forecasted additional gas to the national grid, a Petrobangla official told the newspaper.

Petrobangla chairman Hossain Monsur the told New Age that the state-run corporation had offered Gazprom a package which it hoped would result in an additional supply of about 200 million cubic feet of gas to the national grid by 2012.

A Petrobangla official was quoted as saying that the corporation was desperate to increase the gas supply to the national grid as soon as possible.

Bangladesh is now short of about 500 million cubic feet of gas a day, with a daily demand standing at 2,500 million cubic feet gas.

The shortage has caused an outcry among the consumers, provoking the opposition parties to protest.