Present status of Bangladesh gas fields and future development: A review

Abstract

Natural gas, played vital role as main energy source to the rapid development of Bangladesh, production and consumption has been increased drastically during last decades. Geological and geophysical explorations have identified significant quantities of natural gas reserves in Bangladesh. Proper reservoir characterization is very important in estimating the actual amount of gas reserve. Fortunately, there are 27 gas fields in Bangladesh till now. In 1993, the initial estimated recoverable gas reserve was around 12.43 TCF. The amount became around 26.84 TCF by 2011 and finally grew to 27.12 TCF at the end of 2017. From this amount, around 15.22 TCF gas has already been produced. So, the remaining 12 TCF gas can be used for future use. Moreover, it is projected that the country would be able to fulfill the growing demand of natural gas for the next 10–12 years with the remaining gas reserve. It is therefore an urgent need to increase the amount of gas reserve. To discover a new gas field would contribute significantly to the total gas reserve but it is time taking and cumbersome. An alternative and effective way is to the development of existing gas fields to increase the gas reserve termed as “reserve growth”. It is evident that reassessment of reservoir properties with latest techniques would increase the amount of gas reserve significantly. This study thus finds that reassessment of reservoirs characteristics in Bangladesh gas fields can be done using new techniques such as detailed digital reservoir characterization technique which might increase the total gas reserve. Keywords: Natural gas, Reservoir, Reserve growth, Reanalysis, Digital detailed reservoir characterization