Asia’s Channel News quotes Unocal as saying it had signed an agreement with Petrobangla and expected to produce about 200 million cfd of gas from the field starting in the fourth quarter of 2006.

The development plan also included two pipelines to connect the Bibiyana field to the national distribution grid.

Unocal is the largest private supplier of gas to Petrobangla and provides almost 15% of Bangladesh's natural gas requirements.

Bangladesh has proven recoverable gas reserves of 13tcf and Bibiyana 2.4 tcf, according to official figures.

The California-based company discovered the field, in north-eastern Bangladesh, in 1998. But development of Bibiyana and other fields has been slow because the country, one of the poorest in the world, has wanted to use domestic gas internally and not for export to such countries as energy-starved neighbor India.