Dhaka: Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company (BAPEX) has overcome major problems in its drilling works in Mubarakpur and Saldanadi gas fields.

It has successfully removed the bottlenecks created at the end of its drilling jobs in the two gas fields in Pabna and Brahmanbaria, said a press release on Sunday.

BAPEX, the drilling arm of the state-owned Petrobangla, has been drilling with newly purchased rigs in three gas fields, namle Mubarakpur (in Sathia of Pabna), Saldanadi (Kasba of Brahmanbaria) and Kailashtila (Golapganj in Sylhet). But the drilling works in two of the gas fields was halted due to various problems.

Official sources said BAPEX started its drilling work at Mubarakpur-1 well in July 2015. But the rig experienced major problems after drilling of some 4,400 meters of the targeted depth of 4,700 meters.  As the drill tools were lost in the well, the drilling work was immediately halted.

BAPEX faced a similar experience on the Salda-4 drilling site.

Following the problems, BAPEX sought help from different foreign Operating and Service companies in Bangladesh. In partnership with Halliburton, the BAPEX has successfully sidetracked the bottlenecks from the wells of the two gas fields.

Halliburton has been a longtime partner in the development of energy over two decades in Bangladesh by providing services to Petrobangla subsidiaries BAPEX, BGFCL, SGFL, along with Chevron, Santos and Gazprom in drilling different gas fields such as Titas, Shahbazpur, Bibiyana, Jalalabad, Kailashtila, Salda and Mubarakpur.