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French giant to search for oil in Lanka’s east
View(s):The tender for the exploration for oil and natural gas off the eastern coast of Sri Lanka will be given to Total, a leading French company, the Cabinet has decided. The company would gain exclusive rights for scanning, data collection and mapping in the seas off the eastern coast, Power and Energy Ministry Secretary B.M.S. Batagoda said.
He said this would be the first time that gas and oil exploration would take place in the eastern seas. Meanwhile, with the exit of Cairn India from the Mannar basin, bids have been received from three other companies — Total, Shell and ExxonMobil — for exploration in the area.
The bids came after an open tender was called when Cairns Lanka, a subsidiary of Cairns India, pulled out of the Mannar exploration. “However, the two wells in the basin had yielded two trillion cubic metres of natural gas which would be sufficient to meet the demand of the country for ten years,” Dr. Batagoda said.
He said natural gas would be used to run the power plants at Kerawalapitya and Kelanitissa. The new tender would be awarded for 20 blocks in the Mannar basin while a separate tender would be called to work on the data obtained by Cairns during its exploration.
Dr. Batagoda, meanwhile, said the government has stopped buying private sector-generated power with all licences cancelled, except one.