Bangladesh finds a major natural gas reserve

Bangladesh has discovered a major natural gas reserve, an official said Tuesday, in a find that could help the fast-developing country tackle severe energy shortages. The state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company found one trillion cubic feet (tcf) of previously uncharted gas in the Rashidpur gas field, project head Tofazzal Hossain said.
A three-dimensional seismic survey also showed that there was potentially another 2.4 tcf of gas at the field, 150 kilometres (90 miles) north-east of Dhaka, although this was likely to be harder to extract, Hossain said. "We are 80 percent certain to extract the one tcf reserve. But the other reserve is in the high-risk category," he told AFP. A decade of six-percent growth in Bangladesh and years of under-investment in gas exploration mean the country's two dozen gas fields now only meet 80 percent of daily demand.