Raihanul Abedin

Major Muhammad Raihanul Abedin (মোহাম্মদ রাইহানুল আবেদিন; born 1 July 1952) is a former military officer of the Bangladesh Army and an energy, power and utilities engineer.

He was the former PSC director of the Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation.

Working on behalf of the government of Bangladesh, he oversaw all energy production treaties with various foreign energy companies, including Enron Corporation, Niko Resources, and Tullow Oil.

He attended the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (then known as East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology), where he studied mechanical engineering, graduating in 1970.

He was an Army Scholar.

During his time in BUET, he was the President of Awami League Chatro League.

He also led the Choi Dofa Andalon from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

He married Shamsun Nahar, a member of the Munshibari family of Comilla.

Nahar was the older sister of authors Kamrun Nahar and Saleh Uddin.

He has two daughters, Shehnaz Raihan Abedin (Jenny) and Nowrin Raihan Abedin, and a son, Mohammad Rafatul Abedin (Rafat).

In March 1973, Abedin was commissioned in the East Pakistan Army, then later the newly formed Bangladesh Army, where he served alongside Sheikh Kamal, son of former President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh.

In February 1984, he retired from the military, ranked a Major to work in the private sector.

When asked about the 1997 blowout of the Magurchhara gas field, caused by Occidental Petroleum (later taken over by Chevron) and the resulting $6.12 billion suit against Chevron Corporation, (of which only TK 380,000,000 was paid in damages) and why nothing was done of it, he said "Ask the government".

He also received objection letters from Tullow Oil, when they objected the sell out of Chevron Texaco interests to Niko Resources and the Government of Bangladesh.

This was at the Bibiyana field, which was located roughly around 180 miles north-east of the capital Dhaka, and had a reserve of 2.4 trillion cubic feet of gas; it was found by Unocal in 1998.

In 2001, Abedin was the first to initiate the national plan to decrease the use of using liquid fuels, by introducing natural gas conversion.

He thought if cars could be converted to use cooking gas instead of rather harmful fuels, the carbon emission would decrease exponentially.

He was given the permission by the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to carry out his plans.

As a result, Asian Development Bank funded his scheme and today more than 80% of Bangladeshi vehicles are run on gas which has lessened pollution significantly.

Between 2003 and 2006, Niko Resources was possibly involved in a corruption scandal involving the $750 million Tengratila and Feni gas fields in Bangladesh (the company accidentally caused an explosion, initially refused to pay for damages and gave the Minister responsible for overseeing compensation claims an expensive vehicle; Niko eventually did compensate the 620 affected families).

Abedin initiated the $230 million deal with Unocal Corporation (now Chevron Corporation) in 2004, after getting approval from Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

He was also a senior national committee member for International Clean Cities program of the United States Department of Energy in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh was getting very polluted due to extreme use of fuels.

Abedin personally initiated the $230 million (£123.9m) deal with Unocal Corporation (now Chevron Corporation) in 2004, on behalf of Bangladesh, after getting approval from the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

Abedin then served as the managing director of Water Supply and Sewerage System operations of the government of Bangladesh, during the military-supported government of Bangladesh in 2007.

As a former high official of State-Owned Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Limited (RPGCL) Abedin was sued twice by the government on his birthday in 2008.

The allegations were, however, false.

RPGCL claimed that there was a corruption of BDT 15.3 million; however, the company RPGCL did not have an overall worth of BDT 10 million (around US$120,000) at that time, so the allegations weren't sensible.

Abedin was born in East Pakistan to a family of dewans in Comilla, who were chief ministers to the Kings of Tripura in their capital at Comilla.

He was forced to resign once the ruling party took power in the 2009 national elections when the newly formed government sued top officials of the old regime.

Abedin, during whose time WASA was expanded from six to 11 zones was called in the Local Government Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) Ministry in April 2009 and asked to resign immediately due to nepotism, according to the new Government.

Inquiries later suggested that it was just a scheme for him to abandon his post as the head of Dhaka Wasa.

Investigation into corruption allegations were made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in January 2009.

Blowout or failure of equipments are generally out of human control and scope.

Most planned and prepared operations can fail against response from Mother Nature.

In an attempt to blackmail the government of Bangladesh, Niko Resources suspended gas supply from the Feni gas field, Abedin sharply reacted by saying that they (Petrobangla under Bangladesh) might be constrained to take serious steps under the laws of Bangladesh.

Abedin formally claimed compensations from Niko Resources, after both Begum Khaleda Zia, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and the Energy Advisor approved it.

In his letter, Abedin outline Niko's duty to supply three billion cubic feet (BCF) of gas free of cost for burning the same amount of gas in Tengratila, and also compensate Petrobangla for another 5.89 BCF of gas burnt at the sub-surface level.

The letter also sought Tk 840 million as compensation for damage to environment, after Niko paid Tk 25 million to the local people.

Later, Abedin met with President and CEO of Niko Resources at the Energy Division meeting along with the Energy Secretary to resolve pending issues.