The piped gas supply will decrease across the country, state-owned oil company Petrobangla said in a notice issued on Thursday, warning about a low pressure in the piped gas supply for 72 hours starting today noon.
This is the second time in less than two weeks the same floating storage and regasification unit is going offline for maintenance, triggering the gas crisis.
Petrobangla officials said that the maintenance of the FSRU owned by Excelerate Energy was not scheduled.
The FSRU remained out of operation between January 1 and 3, further worsening Bangladesh鈥檚 energy crisis.
The imported liquefied natural gas supply will be 550-560 mmcfd over the three days of maintenance, the Petrobangla notice said.
On Thursday, the LNG supply was 780.8mmcfd.
LNG accounts for a fourth of piped gas supply. After import, LNG is blended with聽 locally extracted natural gas before being distributed through the national grid. Gas accounts for 60 per cent of Bangladesh鈥檚 primary energy consumption.
For a 100mmcfd drop in gas supply, electricity production may reduce by 500MW. The current power demand of the country is about 10,000MW and there is officially no load shedding at the moment.
The impending drop in the gas supply frustrated yet again households and industrialists who have been complaining about receiving far less gas than they paid for over the years, consumers said.
They said that many households were buying food from restaurants despite paying the government for gas and housemaids for cooking.
Many households are spending extra on using liquefied petroleum gas or using electricity for cooking, they said.
Industrialists, on the other hand, are reducing their production to cope with the situation.
Some areas in and adjacent to the capital Dhaka have recently complained about gas supply falling to near zero.
Excelerate Energy began operating Bangladesh鈥檚 first FSRU with the current handling capacity of 60mmcfd on August 19, 2018. LNG import through the FSRU at Moheshkhali was disrupted for months during the monsoon in 2018.
The other FSRU, Summit LNG Terminal, remained offline in six months of the first nine months of 2024.
The Summit-owned floating storage and regasification unit was on routine maintenance in Singapore between January 22 and March 31. It shut down again on May 24 after the cyclone Remal hit. The unit could not be reconnected until September 11, prompting the government to cancel four LNG shipments. LNG deliveries to the terminal resumed on September 19.
In 2021, the Summit LNG terminal was out of service for three months due to a damaged mooring line.
In May 2023, Cyclone Mocha shut down both the FSRUs.
Both the LNG import terminals have a contract to receive about $5,00,000 every day as regasification charge, not subject to the actual amount of gas handled.
