Sheberghan Gas Generation Activity (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 Jawzjan Province. The fields, discovered by Soviet state companies in the 1960s and 1970s, are State-owned and controlled by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum (MoMP). The available geological, geophysical, and well data for the fields date back to the Soviet occupation, with most of the data in Russian and limited information in Dari. However, recent well test reports in English are available for four wells in the Yatimtaq field and four wells in the Gerquduq field, resulting from a 2013 re-entry program. The natural gas from the fields is sour, requiring processing beyond the capacity of the small uncommissioned amine plant in the area to render it fuel/pipeline quality. Reserve estimates are necessary 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 and evaluation principles, as well as the concepts, definitions, and standards of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS). AEAI has received the Agreement for Access to and Use of Data, and Confidentiality of Data (Confidentiality Agreement) signed by the Minister of Mines and Petroleum under date of June 28, 2015, and the directive to MoMP divisions to cooperate with and assist AEAI in gas field technical data access and gathering signed by the Minister under date of July 12, 2015. This represents the culmination of nine long months of efforts by AEAI, reinforced by USAID, to obtain the cooperation of MoMP in data collection needed for reserve estimates for the seven fields. During the reporting period, AEAI completed a revised Request for Proposal (RFP) for subcontracting petroleum engineering services for gas field data evaluation and reserve estimates, including the proposed subcontract itself, and sent the draft RFP to USAID. On August 2, 2015, AEAI received notice that the Contracting Officer had no objection to the proposed subcontract at this time. Additionally, two members of the SGGA staff traveled to Mazar-e-Sharif and conducted market research on the capabilities of printing houses in the area to scan the non-standard, oversized Soviet documents with a quality sufficient for evaluation of the data. They learned that there is only one printing house in Mazar with the equipment necessary to accomplish the task. The staff then traveled to Sheberghan where they worked with the Oil and Gas Survey (OGS) and Afghan Gas Enterprise (AGE) to sort and gather the available geological, geophysical, and well data maintained in Sheberghan for the seven fields. Staff returned to Kabul on August 11 after making arrangements for the documents to be scanned in Mazar upon completion of the procurement process. Since many of the documents are very fragile, SGGA had data from four of the fields scanned in Mazar-e-Sharif to limit wear and tear on the documents, and to generally minimize potential liability for the damage or destruction of any of the data. The available data for the remaining three fields is considerably more than that available for the initial four, and the print house in Mazar significantly revised its earlier estimate to lengthen the amount of time to scan the data. Therefore, several boxes of documents covering the remaining three fields were transported by SGGA staff to Kabul. SGGA intends to have the data from the three remaining fields scanned in Kabul by one or multiple print houses to expedite the scanning process and reduce scanning time. SGGA also continued efforts to collect data in Kabul from various MoMP departments and other sources. The program is expected to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to enlist the services of a qualified engineering firm to evaluate the existing geological, geophysical, and well data for the fields and to prepare the reserve estimates using the existing data to meet those internationally accepted concepts and standards. The ability of the selected engineering firm to develop reserve estimates and the accuracy of those estimates will depend in large measure on the completeness of the data provided to the firm.