Usually, the bid is reduced through negotiations after the initial proposal. But information has been received that Gazprom increased the price by 4 million dollars in the 3-well drilling project in Bhola.
In Gazprom's original proposal, Tobgi, Elisha and Bhola North-2 submitted a bid of 60.81 million dollars. The technical committee recommended reducing the bid by overstating the bid. Bapex sources said that several million dollars were secretly increased without reducing the price. One source claimed that it was to be increased by 4 million dollars to 65 million dollars, while another source claimed that it was to be increased by 2 million dollars to 63 million dollars.
Bapex has never spoken about the bid, and whenever the price issue came up for discussion, it has strategically avoided it. Even now, Bapex people are desperate to make the bid secretly. When asked about the bid from Bapex Managing Director Md. Shoaib, said that the issue was before I joined, the exact figure is not known.
An English daily has written that 77 million dollars is not correct. When attention was drawn to this matter, the Bapex MD said, I am sure that the 77 million dollars figure is not correct. However, I cannot say exactly how much.
In addition to the price, the technical committee itself raised objections to the allocation of Gazprom rig mobilization for the Tobgi, Ilisha and Bhola North-2 drilling projects while the rig was still in Bhola. Gazprom was given a bill of 4 million dollars, ignoring the objections of that committee.
The opinion of the technical committee was not heeded at that time for the work, which was awarded without a tender under a special law. When Gazprom proposed to drill the well, a high-level committee was formed on October 13, 2019, consisting of Petrobangla, Bapex and various officials.
The committee was formed with the then Director (Operations and Mines) of Petrobangla as the convener, the Managing Director of Bapex, the ministry and a representative of BGFCL. The committee clearly mentioned in its report that the mobilization sector has allocated 40,62,576 dollars against the drilling rig, technologies equipment and tools, technological material and personnel for the Tobgi-1 exploration well. In reality, since the drilling rig and equipment are stored in the Bhola area, it is acceptable to mention shifting instead of mobilization. The rig was already there.
Even after that report, Gazprom was given 40,62,576 dollars for mobilization as per their demand.
The committee also raised objections to the allocation for well drilling along with rig mobilization. The report presents statistics on previous well drilling conducted by Gazprom. It presents statistics on drilling of 8 wells of Bapex (Shrikayil-3, Begumganj-3, Semutang-6, Shahbazpur-3, Shahbazpur-4, Shrikayil-4 Shahbazpur East-1, Bhola North-1) from 2013 to 2017. It said that 3 wells were drilled vertically and 5 wells were drilled directionally. The prices of the 3 vertical wells including mobilization were 17.69 million, 16.72 million and 16.48 million dollars respectively. On the other hand, 20.28 million dollars have been proposed for Tobgi, 20.28 million dollars for Elisha-1 and 20.25 million dollars for Bhola North-2 wells. That is, the prices proposed for the 3 wells are an average of 3.29 million dollars more than the prices for drilling the previous wells. The committee in its recommendation said to discuss the prices. But who listens to whom? State-owned company Bapex has recorded a bill of 63 million dollars instead of 65 million dollars, including Gazprom mobilization. That is, even though Gazprom made a mistake in asking, Bapex did not hesitate to pay. The report shows that Gazprom was paid 3.29 million dollars more than the Bhola North-1 well drilled a few months ago.
Usually, the DPP is finalized considering the type of work and the cost of purchasing materials for a project. But in the case of Gazprom, a formal DPP was issued based on how much to pay. In the case of well drilling work given to Gazprom without a tender, the price was determined in the ministry. Later, information was found that each well was paid 100 to 130 crore taka more. And all sorts of sectors were shown to match that cost figure.
There has been a demand to scrutinize all the contracts signed with Gazprom under a special law without a tender. A syndicate has embezzled several thousand crore taka from the country through the tender given at the highest price. The concerned have requested the Special Act Contract Review Committee to expose those involved in the looting.
The work that the state-owned company Bapex could do for 70 to 80 crore taka has been given for 200 crore taka when Gazprom was given 200 crore taka per well, Bapex dug the Rupganj well (2015) at a cost of 61 crore taka. The estimated price in the DPP of that project was 97 crore taka, Bapex completed that work for 61 crore taka and returned the remaining money. The cost of digging the Shrikail East-1 and Salda North-1 wells (2016) was 144 crore taka. This brought the cost per well to 72 crore taka.
Gazprom's commission recipients try to present various arguments. They said that since Bapex used its own rig, it did not have to pay rig rent, so the cost is low. If you add the rig rent, the price paid to Gazprom is not even close. The ideal time to drill a well is considered to be 45 days (although it is completed in 30 days), so the rig rent (daily rent of 20 thousand dollars/120 taka) is around 100 crore taka. That is, the total is 820 crore taka.
Energy experts said that there are also such examples that can be called terrible at the same time. Yet the Taufiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury syndicate has done that terrible thing. In 2014, the proposal to drill the Srikail-4 well was approved in the 354th board meeting of Bapex. The 64 crore DPP (Project Development Proposal) was approved in the 10th board meeting. The approved DPP was sent to Petrobangla. The rule is that work will start subject to Petrobangla's approval.
But instead of approving the 64 crore taka DPP, Petrobangla was ordered to send a DPP of Tk. 200 crore. A DPP of Tk. 200 crore was forced to be made for the same work (same depth). And that work was given to Gazprom.
The chairman of the National Group, Abdus Sattar Mia (Mia Sattar), a Bangladeshi expatriate living in Russia, is behind this. The mysterious man Mia Sattar was once Bangladesh's ambassador to Russia. Since the Awami League was in a state of chaos, he did whatever he wanted. Despite many controversies, his misdeeds did not stop.
Professor Shamsul Alam, CAB's energy adviser, told Barta24.com that the issue of drilling the Bhola well is not related to Bangladesh's energy demand. Such anarchy, where a job worth 10 taka is being paid for 100 taka, cannot be found anywhere in the world. All the wrongs committed to give work to Gazprom are criminal offenses, and they should be prosecuted under criminal law.