Anwar Hossain Bhuiyan: I would say we should first focus on the existing gas fields. There are 29 gas fields in the country. If we consider 20 of them to be operational, there is still potential within these fields.

Due to natural geological constraints, it is not possible to extract all the gas in a field by drilling just one or a few wells. As a result, there may be some areas beyond those from which we have extracted gas where reserves remain untapped. These are known as undrained compartments.

These undrained compartments can be identified by reprocessing, reinterpreting and reevaluating data from existing gas fields. New wells can then be drilled there quickly. Since gas has already been found in another part of the same field, the likelihood of finding gas in these areas is relatively high. Another major advantage is that there would be no need to build new infrastructure. Existing infrastructure could be used, allowing gas to be supplied directly to the national grid. This could be a quick and effective way to increase gas production.

Oil and gas exploration began in Bangladesh in 1955 and became a reality with discoveries in 1961. As a result, many of our wells are quite old. Many of these wells have deteriorated. Production can be increased by repairing them through workovers.

However, everyone should remember that whether it is BAPEX or a foreign company, all parties involved in exploration have to work amid considerable uncertainty.

Bangladesh is a small country, and our gas fields are also relatively small. So exploration failures should not be viewed as a major setback. Rather, failing to find gas in a well means we have gained new information. That information is extremely valuable. It can be used to make future exploration more precise and reduce uncertainty.

Another possibility is to drill into the deeper sections of gas fields that are currently in production. Because of our technological limitations, we have so far drilled only to certain depths and extracted gas from the upper layers. But the layers deeper below offer not only uncertainty but also a much greater possibility of finding gas.

Bangladesh has already taken initiatives for deep drilling in several gas fields. I believe these fields could yield some very encouraging results.

In short, by identifying undrained compartments and drilling new wells, repairing existing wells through workovers to increase production, and drilling into deeper layers of existing gas fields, we can increase production from the fields we already have.