Cairn's Bangladesh field 'running dry'

Published on Thursday 14 August 2008 21:50

BANGLADESHI officials claimed to be caught by surprise yesterday after Cairn Energy, which operates Sangu, the country's only offshore gas field, warned the reserves could be exhausted by the end of 2009.

Mohammad Muqtadir Ali, a director of the state-run oil, gas and mineral corporation, Petrobangla, reportedly said the Scots company had told it that the reserves were being exhausted fast. "We have been frustrated by this information but will sit down with Cairn next week to try to sort out the problem," he said.

A spokesman for Cairn, which has been operating the Sangu field since 1998, declined to comment.

The company has warned in the past that the Sangu field is beyond peak production and it has reportedly told the Bangladeshi government informally of the probable timescale of production.

Cairn has explored unsuccessfully for other gas fields off Bangladesh in recent years.

Elsewhere the firm is recruiting more than 300 experts to help in the project to build a major pipeline to transport oil from its fields in the Indian state of Rajasthan to the coast.