Chevron mulls exit from Bangladesh

Chevron Corporation is seeking about $2 billion from a sale of natural gas assets in Bangladesh to counter an energy-price slump.

The second-largest US energy company confirmed that it is in "commercial discussions" regarding its Bangladesh assets as it moves forward with plans to sell assets amid a prolonged slump in energy prices.

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However, it stressed that no decision has been made to sell its assets in the country.

"We will only proceed if we can realise attractive value for Chevron," it said in a statement yesterday.

The California-based company disclosed in October last year plans to sell about $10 billion of assets by 2017.

In July, Chevron posted its biggest quarterly loss since 2001, hurt by the slump in crude prices and refining income.

The Bangladesh assets sale has drawn interests from suitors, including Indian and Chinese oil producers, Bloomberg reported.

Chevron, which is the largest foreign investor in Bangladesh's energy sector, operates the Bibiyana, Jalalabad and Moulvibazar fields and sells all the production to state oil company Petrobangla, according to its website.

In 2015, its net daily production averaged 720 million cubic feet of natural gas, which is about one-third of the total production of Bangladesh.

It also produced 3,000 barrels of condensate, also known as natural gasoline.

The sales plan came despite the company increased its production tenfold in the last decade. In 2014, it announced the start of production at the Bibiyana Expansion Project involving $500 million in investment, one of the largest foreign investment projects in Bangladesh's history.

The project, including two gas-processing trains, additional development wells and an enhanced liquids recovery facility, has a capacity of producing 300 million cubic feet of natural gas and 4,000 barrels of condensate per day. The liquid recovery facility started up in the first quarter of 2015.