SGGA Monthly Report on Data Collection Progress

The program, led by Advanced Engineering Associates International, Inc. (AEAI), involves the preparation of reserve estimates for up to seven natural gas fields in the Amu Darya Basin. The fields, which are State-owned and controlled by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum (MoMP), were discovered by Soviet state companies in the 1960s and 1970s. The available geological, geophysical, and well data for the fields date from before 1989 and are mostly in Russian, with limited information in Dari. However, there are more recent well test reports in English for four wells in the Yatimtaq field and four wells in the Gerquduq field as a result of a 2013 re-entry program. Natural gas from the fields is sour, requiring processing beyond the capacity of the small uncommissioned amine plant in the area. Reserve estimates are needed to attract private investment for the development of central gas gathering and gas processing facilities, as well as a proposed 200 MW gas-fired electrical generation facility near the city of Sheberghan. Additionally, a 50 MW gas-fired power plant is to be constructed at Mazar-e-Sharif and supplied from the fields. Foreign investors and financial institutions will require detailed reserve estimates that comply with internationally accepted petroleum engineering principles and standards. AEAI has submitted a summary of the Request for Proposal (RFP) and its scope of work to the Afghanistan Petroleum Authority (APA) and has conducted market analysis to identify printing houses capable of providing high-quality scans of the data. The scanning of all available data on the seven fields has been completed, and the scanned data will be provided to the MoMP and its entities. The Ministry will then have an easily accessed source of all of its natural gas data available at this time for the Sheberghan area preserved electronically. The organization and indexation of the voluminous data collected have begun, and when completed, the index will be made available to the short-listed international engineering firms to which the RFP will be sent. Meetings have been held with USAID personnel and printing house representatives in Kabul to assess their capacity to provide quality scans of the data. Challenges have been encountered due to the age, fragile condition, and non-standard sizes of much of the data, making it difficult to obtain readable document scans. Organization and indexation of Russian documents have also proven to be a challenging and time-consuming process. For the next month, AEAI plans to complete organizing and indexing the documents and issue the RFP. The completion of these tasks will enable the selection of a qualified engineering firm to evaluate the existing geological, geophysical, and well data for the fields and prepare the reserve estimates using the existing data to meet internationally accepted concepts and standards.