Tullow Oil plugs well in Bangladesh

Independent oil and gas exploration, development and production firm Tullow Oil plc has said it has decided to plug and abandon the Rasulpur-1 well in Bangladesh.

"While the well encountered some potentially encouraging reservoir intervals, an analysis of the well logs indicates that no significant quantities of moveable hydrocarbons are present. The well will now be plugged and abandoned," the company said in a statement.

The drilling rig will move to Lalmai where drilling is expected to start late this month. The third well on Block 9, on the Bangora prospect, will follow Lalmai.

Tullow is the operator of the block with a 30% stake.

In Gabon, drilling of the Kiarsseny Topaze South-1 well started last Thursday. Work is estimated to take 40-50 days.

The exploration work in the Monroe well in the southern North Sea also continues, and production in the Boulton-H1x well is expected to start early next month.

As well as operations in the Indian Subcontinent (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan), Tullow Oil also searches for and produces oil in Africa (Algeria, Egypt, and the Ivory Coast), and has operations in Romania.

Shifting its emphasis to waters closer to home, in 2001 the firm increased its reserves in the British North Sea by more than 226 billion cubic feet of gas, through the acquisition of fields from BP.

Tullow Oil has proved and probable reserves of 19.9 million barrels of oil and 359.9 billion cubic feet of gas.