By Maheesha Mudugamuwa A decision was taken by the Government to recommence oil and gas exploration and also to attract more investors to the industry, Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila said. He told the media that the country had already prepared a natural gas policy to attract more investors to explore for oil and gas in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, a new Director General (DG) and Advisor were appointed to the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat (PRDS). Surath Owitigama was appointed the new DG of the PRDS while Saliya Wickramasuriya was appointed the Advisor to the Secretariat. Oil and gas exploration recommenced last year after three years and the Secretariat reopened the ex-Cairn M2 block in the Mannar Basin for development and commercialisation through a limited tender offer. As of last year, Sri Lanka received three proposals from two consortiums and an operator based in the UK, South East Asia, and the Middle East. According to the PRDS, the proposals were being evaluated by the project team and once done, would then be referred for recommendations to the Cabinet-Appointed Negotiation Committee (CANC). After the competition of the evaluation process, the Secretariat stated that the agreement between the selected company and the Government would be signed at the end of this year. It was under former Petroleum Resources Development Minister Chandima Weerakkody and during the presidency of former President Maithripala Sirisena that Total, a French oil and gas giant, was brought down to Sri Lanka to begin offshore oil exploration off the eastern coast in 2016. However, Weerakkody lamented that his successors had abandoned his project and as a result, the whole process was delayed by over two years. “Earlier, the Secretariat planned to have gas production by 2023 with the existing developments of the M2 block for which we have already advertised. Then, we needed Total and Equinor to interpret the existing data from the JS5 and JS6 blocks in the Eastern Sri Lanka Basin to decide on future steps.” According to the PRDS, the first comprehensive seismic programme in the Mannar Basin was conducted in 1984 under a tripartite agreement between Phoenix Canada Oil Company, Petro-Canada, and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC). Petro-Canada acquired 980 km of 2D seismic data in the Mannar Basin. However, no further work was done and by 1984, petroleum exploration work offshore came to a halt and remained dormant till 2001. Again in 2001, the CPC and TGS-NOPEC signed an agreement to collect 1,100 km of 2D seismic data in the Mannar Basin. In 2007, under a cabinet decision, the Government of Sri Lanka bought the Mannar Basin 2D data from TGS-NOPEC, thereby cancelling the exclusive rights TGS-NOPEC had to collect seismic data in the territorial waters of Sri Lanka. Based on this data, the Mannar Basin was divided into nine exploration blocks ranging from 3,340 to 6,640 sq. km. Out of the said nine blocks, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to offer three for petroleum exploration under an international licensing round. In September 2007, the PRDS, under the President’s Office, launched the Mannar Basin Licensing Round for three exploration blocks in the Mannar Basin. In 2008, the Government, through the Minister of Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Development, signed a Petroleum Resources Agreement with Cairn Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd. However, in 2015, Cairn Lanka, a subsidiary of Cairn India Ltd. (CIL), one of the leading independent exploration and production companies globally, exited from its operations in Sri Lanka due to the drop in crude oil prices.