Compensation from Unocal still remains elusive

The Lawachhara National Park as well the Reserve

Forest attached to the gas field is also yet to get back their original look even after new plantations in the last few years.

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The energy ministry and the environment ministry separately claimed Tk 4,000 crore compensation for damages to gas resources and environment.

The government in May 2003 decided to file a lawsuit to realise compensation but nothing mentionable has been done. Rather, the company has been given permission to drill more new wells near the location.

The company started drilling of a well there two weeks ago and will start another within weeks, sources said.

The company has also been allowed to lay pipeline through the National Park and the Reserve Forest areas to connect the National Gas Grid with the gas processing plant set up in nearby Kalapur area.

Environmentalists' protests in this regard were ignored.

The much talked about Magurchhara blowout took place in the early hours of June 15, 1997 when US company Occidental was drilling a well. It was contracted for hydrocarbon exploration in blocks12, 13 and 14.

The blowout destroyed 245.96 billion cubic feet of gas worth over 600 million US dollars in addition to

vast forest resources, according to a government estimate.

Occidental handed over its business in Bangladesh to Unocal in 1999 and left Bangladesh.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources earlier asked the government to apprise it on the 'so-called' five per cent 'supplementary share agreement', signed on November 25, 1998, to adjust the compensation claim for the blowout, through which Unocal was trying to get rid of its obligations.

The parliamentary body had identified 15 flaws in Occidental's operations that led to the Magurchhara explosion.

Unocal claimed that the demand for compensation was been met through the 'supplementary agreement' and the claim is no longer valid after that agreement.

Environmentalists say at least 110 years will be needed to restore the forests there to their original look.

A Unocal official, when contacted said yesterday that the company met the compensation claim through the 'supplementary agreement'.