Sri Lanka: Oil Exploration In Eastern Seas Begins
Posted on September 3rd, 2018
By Eurasia Review
Petroleum exploration activities in the eastern seas, covering Trincomalee and Batticaloa, began Sunday with the arrival of a vessel of the BGP Marine seismic fleet (02). Accordingly, the research vessel BGP-Pioneer sailing under the flag of Panama to commence will acquire two-dimensional seismic data in the selected offshore areas of the island.
The 3D streamer vessel arrived at the Colombo Port on Saturday and ceremonially commenced the operations this morning. The exploration activities are conducted under the instructions of Petroleum Resources Development Minister Arjuna Ranatunga.
The China-made vessel will acquire 5,000 line kilometers of data in the JS5 and JS6 exploration blocks in the Eastern Sri Lanka Basin.The ship will sometimes sail near the coast and sometimes in the deep sea to collect the data.
Accordingly, the fishermen fishing in the Eastern seas have been enlightened on the ship’s activities to lay their nets so as not to obstruct the ship’s operations, the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Director Trincomalee fisheries inspector Thilak Bandara Senarath said.
The government signed an agreement with Eastern Echo DMCC, subsidiary of a major oilfield services company Schlumberger, on the 30th of May 2018 to collect, market and license of petroleum data on multi-client” basis, enabling several data acquisition projects, including 2D and 3D seismic, in selected offshore areas around Sri Lanka at no cost to the Government.Eastern Echo DMCC expects to invest 50 million dollars for the exploration under this agreement and they will recover it from sales proceeds to multiple investors
September 3rd, 2018 at 5:32 pm
We do not have any control over it. They will sell the DATA to the outside market.
Where is the sovereignty of Sri Lanka?
This is similar to proverbial “Gama mahage” who got her hair cut by the visiting barber to demonstrate how smart she was to get the money’s worth.
At least, have you secured a provision for GOSL or the relevant department also to get this information?
Have you at least consulted the intellectuals? (But where are they??)