DHAKA, March 11, 2024 (BSS) - Bangladesh today announced Offshore Bidding 2024 to accelerate oil and gas exploration.

A press conference organized by the Energy and Mineral Resources Division on "Oil and Natural Gas Exploration Under Bangladesh Offshore Bidding Round 2024", was held at Petrobangla Auditorium.

Prime Minister's Advisor on Electricity, Energy and Mineral Resources, Taufiq-e-Ilahi Chowdhury was present at the press conference as the chief guest where State minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid attended as the special guest.

 In order to make 'Offshore Model PSC, 2019' more contemporary and competitive in the global context, 'Bangladesh Offshore Model PSC, 2023' was formulated based on the opinion of international consultants and Petrobangla's own review, which was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on July 26, 2023.

 The new PSC includes several interesting points, which aims at creating exploration opportunities for international oil companies in Bangladesh's offshore areas.

 One of the point of the newly formulated PSC is to make the annual cost recovery maximum of 75pc for both deep and shallow sea areas, said the release.

 As a result of this change, the contractor will get the invested money back promptly, and so Petrobangla will receive a higher rate of dividend.

 Profit sharing method in the current PSC has been included by following Profitability Based (R-Factor).

In this method, the contractor's invested money is guaranteed to be returned within a reasonable time, and the government has kept the opportunity to receive more dividends by keeping the upper limit and lower limit of the dividend share eligible for bidding, it said.

 Brent has been used as the marker price for determining the price of shallow and deep sea gas, and it has linked gas prices to the international market.

These attractive points in the PSC are expected to catch the eyes of the international bidders and investors to explore the offshore energy sources.

The press conference was chaired by Petrobangla Chairman Janendra Nath Sarkar and Energy and Mineral Resources Department Secretary M Nurul Alam.