New oil reserve discovered in Sylhet-10 well

Oil reserves have been discovered at Sylhet-10 well, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said at a press briefing on Sunday.

"From that reserver, Bangladesh can produce 500-600 barrels per day and we hope that the next 20 years will be benefited from this," he added.

At an emergency press briefing held at Secretariat the State Minister said the drilling of this well started two months ago. The oil was discovered in two gas layers of the field in Sylhet. In the first two hours, 70 barrel of oil have been extracted. The extracted oil from the Sylhet mine has been sent to the laboratory, he added.

Total, four layers of reserve fuel have also been identified.

The first layer, at a depth of 1,400 metres is where oil was found but no gas was found in that layer, more tests need to be conducted before the full picture can be understood.

Around 2,460-2475 metre, the second layer initial tests revealed reserves of around 20-25mmcfd of gas.

After that layer at a depth of around 2,540-2,575 metre, around 20-25mmcfd of gas with the pressure there stands at 3,500 PSI, was also discovered during a test on 26 November.

Another layer also found at 3,300 metres, yet to be investigated fully. The survey has not yet been completed due to high pressure of around 6,000 PSI. The full extent of the gas and oil reserves will be known after all the tests are completed, the state minister said.

The reserves of gas could be worth around Tk 8,500 crore and may be usable for more than 15 years.

About 2,300mmcfd gas is being produced from 21 gas fields in the country at this stage, while about 700mmcfd gas is being imported from abroad to meet the demand of about 4,000mmcfd, leaving a deficit of about 1,000mmcfd.

Earlier, the much discussed Sylhet-7 well in the history of Bangladesh as this was the single oil producing well of the country, was drilled at Haripur in 1986.

After 7 years of more or less uninterrupted production of total 560869 barrels of crude oil, the well (Syl-7) ceased its production on 14 July, 1994 due to gradual decline in well head pressure.