Early in the new decade of the ’80s when oil and gas was was at its peak of development Steve Harrison called from Houston and asked if I could go to London to meet a Huffco development manager to discuss a new potential project in Bangladesh. I was currently country manager in Trinidad. Steve was aware that the LNG plant that I was trying to advance at Pt Lisas on the western coast of Trinidad had been stalled as the US government was changing the rules regarding the pricing of imported natural gas.

On arrival in London I needed a visa for Bangladesh, so I went to the High Commission, which happened to be a terrace in Knightsbridge. As I walked in I saw bullet holes in the wall of the terrace next door. It was the Iraq Embassy, where they had had a shoot-out the previous week. I had been trying to develop a gas project in north eastern Iraq a few years earlier but it had been scuttled by a war between the government and Kurdish nationals where the project was located.

In the basement, through a small window against a wooden blank wall the clerk told me that my visa would take a week and I needed seven copies of the application and seven photographs. I said, ‘Look, I don’t want to go to Bangladesh, but my boss and your boss, the President would like me to go, so I’ll be back tomorrow. You do have two copies. It’s your choice.’ He looked at me blankly and I left.

In the morning around 11am, having collected my passport and visa with no fuss, I went to see the commercial attaché upstairs to get details of the area in the south of Bangladesh where theproposed LNG plant was to be sited. I was told that the attaché didn’t turn up till noon and then only stayed 30 minutes before going to lunch. I asked if I could wait in his office. This didn’t seem to be a problem even though there was no secretary. I looked around the office and noticed piles of reports on several tables. I found pretty much everything I wanted, so I bundled up the documents and left, telling the receptionist not to worry. As I went down the stairs and out, I noticed a Rolls-Royce pulling in with several Bangladeshi officials; I assumed he was one of them. I walked right past them and went on my way. I met with the Huffco representative and ran through the proposed development. I showed him the documents I had obtained from the High Commission and we spent a couple of hours sketching out the fundamentals for a new LNG plant. We agreed on a plan and I headed for the airport feeling well prepared.

Once in Dhaka and settled into the hotel I needed to meet our local agent, Ahmed Rahman. I had to wait a couple of days for two Huffco engineers from Houston, Bob Drake and Alan Gale, who were coming to give me a hand, The hotel was quite grand and seemed to have diplomats as their main guests. The garden and pool area was very nice but had many large blackbirds walking on the grass who seemed very aggressive.

Many years before, Shell Oil had discovered a large gas field in Bakhrabad, in the north-east of the country. Shell was not interested in gas and had abandoned the discovery. The emergence of LNG had stimulated the government to explore options for development of the gas. Roy Huffington had met the national president at a conference in Europe. Roy explained that LNG would provide a good export industry for the country as their main export was sisal for bags which was a low margin product. Roy’s company Huffco had built the world’s largest LNG facility in Kalimantan Indonesia a few years earlier in record time. Our visit was a follow-up to assess the viability for export of the Bangladeshi gas abandoned by Shell. The main difficulty lay in finding a suitable port as the offshore water depth was too shallow for large tankers. Chittagong in the south was the main port but it was too shallow for our needs and a location further south at Cox’s Bazar was suggested.

Dhaka is a miserable place. We were there in the monsoon season. The people are downcast and poorly dressed. Litter in the gutters chokes the drains. Everything seemed damaged, with footpaths broken and street signs twisted. Ahmed owned a steel fabrication plant on the edge of town that produced steel reinforcement for concrete and insisted I visit his facility. He wanted to demonstrate to me that that he was an industrialist of note and an important man in the community. Hundreds of people were outside the perimeter fence, waiting for a job. This surprised me, because it was the most dangerous plant I’d seen. As we walked around I noticed that the equipment was old and safety screens were minimal. ‘Do you have accidents?’ ‘Yes, unfortunately,’ Ahmed replied, ‘but there are many people who will fill the places of the injured.’ I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough and took an instant dislike to Ahmed.
However, the port was picturesque and I took pictures of the colourful sail boats. I saw a cement barge being unloaded and again realised safety was of little concern. A line of fifty men carried a bag each to be filled in the hold and then trudged to the waiting trucks, where they emptied their bags and repeated the task. Each time they passed through the hold they inhaled cement dust. They would all be dead in a couple of years from silicosis. I wondered how we could build a modern sophisticated operation and run it when these activities were tolerated.

We had planned a visit to the fishing port of Cox’s Bazar, which was close to the proposed site for the LNG plant and terminal. It needed to be that far south to allow an LNG tanker to dock in the shallow waters of the Bangladeshi coast. IMEG, a British consultancy, had performed a preliminary study suggesting a plant could be located behind a large inlet to the north of the town. At dinner, we met our pilot, Hasan, who was the chief flight instructor for the country – a good sign. I explained to him that we needed to overfly the area around Cox’s Bazar to see the pipeline approach landscape, the plant site and the marine environment. I said we would take photos along all the runs. He agreed quickly, but seemed more interested in the whiskey we provided. He paid little attention to our discussions and finally collapsed in a drunken stupor – not a good sign.
The team arrived and with our agent took a local flight to Chittagong and boarded an old Wiley’s jeep for the journey south. It was very uncomfortable as Ahmed and the driver sat on the front seat and the three of us were on seats facing each other in a separate cabin behind. It was difficult to sit up straight and we bounced as the back wheels hit ruts. On arrival into Cox’s Bazar we were greeted by ram shackle buildings spread along a wide long beach. After checking into the local hotel we immediately went to the local airstrip to find our pilot. Hasan was very jolly and seemed to have recovered from his hangover. We boarded a small four-passenger Cessna. Bob and I got in the back so Alan could take photos from the front seat. There was a man lying on the floor under my feet. I said to Hasan, ‘What’s this?’ ‘Oh, he’s a trainee pilot just getting up his flying hours. Is he in the way?’ ‘Yes, don’t be crazy.’ The man crawled out of the plane. Hasan started the engine and we were taxiing in seconds. He didn’t seem to check any of the instruments, I was very concerned as pre flight checks were a major part of safety procedure. We passed a burnt- out small plane, which Hasan acknowledged was the result of pilot error, and we readied for take off. As we cleared the perimeter fence, Alan took out his camera to be ready for his shots. Hassan turned and said there could be no photos; we had no permission. Hasan and Alan argued and I told Alan to put the camera away till we reached a few thousand feet, as Hasan seemed to be more interested in arguing than flying the plane. At altitude, Hasan and I discussed the plan. He said we were too close to the Burmese border to take photos and anyway we did not have a permit. I said, ‘Why don’t you fly the plane where we tell you and don’t look at the camera. Pretend it doesn’t exist.’ He finally agreed and we continued. After half a dozen runs we made it safely back, but I could have killed Hasan. Safety protocols seemed to be a luxury in Bangladesh.

The next day we went across to the proposed LNG plant site in our jeep and met the local villagers. The head man greeted us with reverence and we were invited into the community hall. A welcome ceremony had been arranged with dancing and singing.

This was followed by a feast of the local fare of offal and rice – quite an ordeal. With the formalities completed the chief led us through paddy fields to the inlet river bank. At one point he stopped and put his finger to his lips, I nearly tripped over him, and then pointed just in front. A large krait snake was sliding from one pond to the next; it seemed to be about 2 metres long with blue and yellow bands. I was glad I was wearing cowboy boots as the snake was the deadliest in Asia.

After viewing the proposed LNG site we hired a tinnie to travel the river which exited the south end of the peninsular to the west to get soundings for the tanker channel. As we made our way downstream and out to sea I noticed a strong current taking us out. I saw the sand bar in the distance, with large waves. It reminded me of my horror when the three children died at Brunswick heads all those years ago when I was a child. I asked the boatman to start the engine and held my breath. It fired up and we started back against the current. When we were nearing the jetty I asked the boatman how much fuel he had left, as it had been a slow return. ‘Almost out, but we here.’ This rammed home to me that I had put my team at risk: if the motor had failed or the fuel had run out we might have drowned, as the current would have dragged us to the raging offshore bombora.

The hotel was half built, as were most of the dwellings in the town. Cox’s Bazar is touted as the Riviera of Bangladesh. ‘See Cox’s Bazar before the tourists discover it!’ spruiked the ads. A mini boom had triggered a building spree, but it had fizzled out. No one came. It was mosquito-infested, but the 145km beach to the south was a highlight. Millions of small red crabs moved like awave as you drove along the beach – extraordinary! It was the highlight of my entire stay in the country.

Ahmed took us our for dinner at a restaurant where he had assembled some local dignatries to introduce our mission. I was surprised that most spoke english and were interested in our work. I made an overview speech to give them a feel for the scope of the project. It would involve the expenditure of many billions of $US over several years. There would be significant disruption of the infrastructure and thousands of foreign workers would be moving in to camps to facilitate the construction. I emphasied that local labour would be offered as much work as their skills could cope. Their were no questions and I asked Ahmed for his reaction to my speech. He was most concerned. He said I should not tell to locals so much as they may misinterpret my comments. He said the national government would set the rules and everyone would have to obey. I realised that we needed to understand how the government and the various beauracracies operated as my experience to date was fairly negative.
I asked the team after the dinner back in the hotel for their impressions and were there any issues that we had missed. They were happy with the technical issues so we went to bed.

On our drive back to Chittagong in the jeep we continually stopped to fill the radiator with water. We had two swampers (labourers) just for that. We entered a forest just south of Chittagong and on rounding a bend were confronted by a stone wall across the road. The driver slowed and Ahmed started screaming at him to accelerate. We crashed through the wall and people ran out of the forest towards us, waving rifles and firing shots. As we hunched over in the back of the jeep thoughts flashed through my mind. We have no weapons, do we fight? I had no idea. We accelerated more and rounded another bend till we were out of sight. I yelled at Ahmed ‘ What was that!?’ No answer. ‘Are we still in danger?’ Ahmed finally said ‘ Hill tribesmen’. It meant nothing to me. We were unaware of the local uprising of the Shanti Bahini of the Chittagong hill tribes, and would have had no way of defending ourselves. We stopped at an army outpost about 8km further along and Ahmed jumped out to talk to the officer. The soldiers immediately sent a truck south to investigate the stone road block as we resumed our journey north. Nothing more was said.

Back in Dhaka, we were scheduled to meet the head of the Petroleum Ministry to update him on our work. It was raining and we entered a building whose windows hadn’t been cleaned in decades. The large spiral stairway inside the entrance concealed beggars who stretched their hands toward us as we passed. The clerk greeted us and we were seated in a large, dingy room looking over the street, which was all but invisible through the filthy windows. Our host Zahir Patoyari arrived and invited us to order tea or coffee with his aide. Zahir was nattily dressed in a pin-striped suit with highly-polished shoes. As we sat down the power went off and it became gloomier. Zahir ignored this and we discussed the LNG project. He enquired about our findings in the south and I said the lack of infrastructure was the main issue. Cox’s Bazar is a fishing village and there is no industrial support. Everything would need to be imported. He stared at me impassively. I continued, the various bureaucracies might prove hurdles for development as here seemed to be rules for everything. He said the President would ensure we had all the cooperation required. This was a national project and he asked me to be optimistic He asked his aide to provide copies of government initiatives that would help our understanding. We chatted for half an hour, but no tea arrived and neither did the documents. The power was still off. We rose to leave and Zahir assured us that the documents would be sent to our hotel when they could be printed. As we made our way down the giant staircase the beggars outstretched arms reminded me of the environment. Why were they allowed in the building?

We were back on the street and the rain teemed down. For the locals, being poor was bad enough, but huddling under a piece of plastic to stay dry must have made their poverty immeasurably worse.

The team assembled in the hotel to review our findings. The overriding issue was the lack of access at Cox’s Bazar for LNG tankers. The IMEG report glossed over this with a statement that a channel could be cut through the offshore bar and maintained. But we had experienced the volume of water that moved with the tides. An access channel was impossible to maintain, and my coastal engineering training reinforced this. Mounting a large project in this environment was fraught with difficulty; also, the bureaucracy would drown you in paper. My instincts told me to report negatively back to Houston.

I wrote my report with the main focus on the ship channel. I believed the IMEG report was incompetent as they had no knowledge of the coastal environment.

Fourty years later I reflected on the project. It was never built and the gas was eventually used domestically for power generation. However a nuclear power station was built in Japan at Fukushima. The expert designers focused on the nuclear technologies and failed to recognise the potential for a tsunami wave. The plant was subsequentially destroyed by such a wave.

I also remembered that the LNG plant in Bontang Kalimantan was interupted by jellyfish clogging the inlet cooling water system. This had occured as a result of increased water temperature caused by the operations. These were multi billion dollar developments that were not properly evaluated in the broader marine environment.

Engineers need to step back and think about the bigger picture when designing these major projects.