UNB, Dhaka

Petrobangla is close to completing its evaluation of the bids received in the re-tender of the 2D Non-Exclusive Multi-Client Seismic Survey in the offshore area of Bangladesh. According to official sources, the state-owned hydrocarbons corporation received bids from five international seismic survey companies on January 31, the last day for bid submission under the re-tender.State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid said the multi-client survey will remove the government’s limitations regarding seismic data in maritime areas. “Once the data is available, it would strengthen our capacity to negotiate better deals for the country with the international oil companies,” he told UNB. The five bidders are Norway-based Tomlinson Geophysical Services Inc & Schlumberger, China’s BGP, DMNG and Marine Arctic Geological Expedition (MAGE) from Russia, and US-based Geotrace. Officials said that of these five companies, all except MAGE participated in the first tender invited by Petrobangla in February 2015. A Singapore based company—Dolphin Geophysical— that took part in the first tender did not submit any bid this time. “Soon after receiving the tender proposals, we started evaluation and now we’re at the final stage. We hope to be able to wrap up our evaluation and submit it to the Energy Ministry for approval within this month,” said a senior official at Petrobangla, who is involved in the evaluation process. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said there is an instruction from the government’s “upper level” to complete the job as early as possible, as they do not want to wait long to award the contract to carry out the multi-client survey.