Colombo: Sri Lanka is seeking international bids for offshore oil and gas exploration, authorities announced Tuesday, more than a decade after an Indian firm abandoned commercial drilling citing high costs.
The island nation said it was offering four offshore blocks covering about 34,000 square kilometres (13,127 square miles) in the Indian Ocean for exploration, development and commercial production.
Sri Lanka, which imports all of its crude oil needs, has seen its fuel import bill increase as much as five-fold since the Middle East war began in February.
Announcing the offshore tenders, Energy Minister Anura Karunathilaka said bidding would remain open until early next year.
"We believe that the time has come to move forward with great determination and a clear sense of purpose," Karunathilaka told a news conference in the capital Colombo.
Sri Lanka had previously offered offshore blocks to India and China but with little commercial success.
Karunathilaka said technology had evolved over the past decade to make deep-sea drilling affordable, expressing his hope that the country would be able to attract investors.
"The government of Sri Lanka is committed to ensuring that exploration and development of offshore resources are undertaken responsibly, transparently and in a manner that creates long?term value," said the minister.
Interest in Sri Lanka's Mannar basin was boosted after Cairn India, through a local subsidiary, drilled four wells between 2011 and 2013 and reported gas discoveries in two of them.
But the company exited in 2015, saying extraction from deposits lying about 4.3 kilometres (14,000 feet) beneath the seabed was not commercially viable.
Neil de Silva, head of Sri Lanka's Petroleum Development Authority, said the cost of drilling a deep offshore well had remained at about $40 million, but the technology to extract oil and gas had become efficient.
Prospective bidders would also be given access to detailed seismic, geological and geophysical data gathered over several decades, he added.
Sri Lanka's "conservative estimate" of gas deposits was about nine trillion cubic feet, and that of oil two billion barrels, de Silva said.
