The National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports on Thursday called on the Awami League-led alliance to refrain from leasing out two offshore gas blocks to a US oil company.
Committee member secretary Anu Muhmammd warned the government from a protest rally in front of the National Press Club that they would launch tough agitation programmes, including hartal, if the plan was not scrapped.
The committee will lay siege to energy ministry on June 14 to mount pressure on the government to drop the plan, Anu said.
He said, ‘We must use our national resources for our own use and export of any such resources must be stopped.’
The cabinet on Monday approved the plan for leasing out two offshore gas blocks to Conoco Phillips of the USA under the model Production and Sharing Contract 2008.
Committee convener Sheikh Muhammad Shaheedullah termed the model-PSC-2008 an imbalanced one, saying under it the company would get 80 per cent of the extracted gas and enjoy the right to export it.
He demanded that the model-PSC-2008 should be scrapped and called on the government to refrain from signing any new PSC with international oil companies.
‘The government has proved that it is loyal to the imperialist America and so is going to sign deals with the IOCs. It has already allowed two multinational companies, Halliburton and Santos, to sell the gas extracted by them to third parties, a move that will ultimately prove to be suicidal for the nation’s interests,’ Shaheedullah said.
National committee leaders Tipu Biswas, Saiful Huq, Ruhin Hossain Prince, Bazlur Rashid Firoz, Mushrefa Mishu, Abdus Salam, Zonayed Saki, and Mozammel Haque Tara, among others, spoke on the occasion.
The rally was followed by a protest procession that paraded a number of city roads.
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