Sri Lanka to call for bids to develop Mannar Basin natural gas find

ECONOMYNEXT – The Sri Lankan government will soon call for bids to develop an offshore natural gas deposit in the Mannar Basin with the aim of getting fuel for a power plant nearby, officials said.

Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat (PRDS) Director General Vajira Dassanayaka said they will first offer the M2 block where Cairn India found natural gas in two test wells.

Government officials are meeting this week to decide on the tender, he told a news conference.

The PRDS also has got investor interest in other blocks in the Mannar Basin, he said.

“Our aim is to develop the Dorado well in the M2 block to supply natural gas to generate electricity,” Dassanayaka said.

The well is 38km from the Norochcholai coal power plant on the northwest coast.

“We estimate the deposit has 350 billion cubic metres of natural gas,” Dassanayaka said. “It’s a small discovery but enough for domestic consumption, for a 300MW power plant for 20 years.”

The well could be in production by 2023 if everything goes according to plan, he said.

The PRDS was having talks with the power ministry and Ceylon Electricity Board state power utility on an agreement to buy the gas for power generation.
(COLOMBO, 22 Octber, 2018)

Thanks Invi. Hope Al least they are serious on making use of our own resources

Sri Lanka to award deal for offshore gas production before end-2019

ECONOMYNEXT- Sri Lanka's Petroleum Resource Development Secretariat (PRDS) is currently evaluating bids for exploring and production of three offshore gas and oil blocks, and the tenders would be awarded before the end of the year, an official said.

Three bids have been received for the licensing round for the M2 block in the Mannar Basin off Sri Lanka's West coast, where gas deposits had been discovered in the past.

“Earlier this year, we went into the market to look for investors for the M2 block,” Director General Vajira Dassanayake said.

“It was supposed to close in May, but then the bombs went up and we had to extend it up to June and we got three proposals for the M2 block," he said.

“The project committee is in the process of evaluating them."

"We are hoping to submit our final report by the first week of September and hopefully before the end of this year, we will be able to award it to the successful party.”

Dassanayake said that the they expect the bidding companies to have a development plan by end-2019 which will then enable the winner to produce the country’s first hydrocarbons by 2023.

Meanwhile, only one bid was received for the second licensing round of 2019 for both the M1 block and the adjoining C1 block.

The tender deadline was in July.

“We went in the market for M1 and C1 blocks, because we had some investor interest,” Dassanayake said.

“After advertising, there was one proposal received for both blocks, which is also being evaluated.”

Dassnayake said that the single proposal for the two blocks came from a local company with both North and South American expertise.

India's Cairn had discovered natural gas in two of the four wells it had drilled in the M2 block spending 240 million US dollars in 2011 after winning a bidding round in 2007.

Cairn had abandoned the M2 block during the 2015 shale oil boom, when the firm decided to exit all international ventures to focus on its main oil fields in Rajastan.

The two wells are estimated to have two trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 10 million barrels of condensate, and twelve international firms had shown interest in bidding for the M2 block, PRDS has said in early 2019.

The M2 block tender round of 2019 is to both produce gas from the two wells and to explore the remainder of the block.

Gas production in the block from the discovered deposits would require nearly a billion US dollars in investments, according to PRDS estimates in the past.

PRDS has said that the 9 blocks in the Mannar Basin alone could have the potential of an additional 5 billion barrels of oil and 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas which would be sufficient for Sri Lanka’s energy needs for the next 60 years.
By Tania Madies