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Bangladesh court bars gas export to India for three months

Bangladesh's high court has blocked for at least three months a government move to export natural gas to India through a pipeline, officials of the energy ministry said on Thursday.

They said the high court issued an injunction on Wednesday stopping the export of gas by a pipeline in violation of production sharing contracts signed with foreign oil companies.

The injunction, which may be extended, followed a writ petition in 1998 by a group of professionals.

After the October 1 general election, the government of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia immediately initiated a move to export gas to India, despite having opposed this when the previous government of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was in power.

Hasina's government signed several PSCs allowing export of compressed natural gas but not the export of raw gas.

The high court on Wednesday also imposed a three-month ban on the signing of PSCs.

Bangladesh has been under pressure from foreign oil companies and international donors to export gas to build up foreign exchange reserves and boost its economy.

A group of Bangladeshi geologists on Wednesday told a seminar that current gas reserves would be exhausted by 2015.

"The proposal for exporting gas to India through pipeline, if implemented, will make all future gas-based plants uncertain," one geologist said.

Officials of Unocal Bangladesh Ltd, a subsidiary of Unocal Corp of the US, earlier said it planned to lay a 30-inch, 1,363 km-long pipeline to initially carry 500 million cubic feet of gas per day from Bibiyana field in northeast Bangladesh to the Indian capital of New Delhi.

This would entail an immediate investment of between $500 million and $700 million and Bangladesh could earn $3.7 billion from the project over a 20-year period, they added.

Unocal submitted the plan to the government late last month.

State Minister for Energy A K M Mosharraf Hossain has said Bangladesh would assess its gas reserves and domestic requirements before making a decision whether to export.

A recent report by the US Geological Survey indicated Bangladesh could have 32.1 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.

Bangladesh has proven reserves of more than 12 trillion cubic feet of gas, enough to cover domestic requirements for 15 years, according to an unofficial estimate.

But the country's opposition parties, including Hasina's Awami League, and local experts are opposed to the export of gas unless there is a surplus after estimated domestic needs for the next 50 years have been met.

They protested the government plan by staging a half-day national strike last month.

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