Gas supply disrupted as ships can't offload LNG

The floating LNG terminal in the Bay of Bengal could not be connected to the cargo ships due to adverse weather for the last two days.

Hence, the gas supply has been disrupted to areas under the jurisdiction of Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Ltd in Chattogram and Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution PLC in Dhaka, as no offloading is taking place, officials say.

State owned company Petrobangla and Titas Gas aplogised over the incident in separate statements.

A statement from Petrobangla on Wednesday said, “LNG cargo berthing at the FSRU located in the deep sea of Maheshkhali was not possible due to adverse weather yesterday (Tuesday) and today (Wednesday), which has significantly reduced LNG transmission to the national grid.

“As a result, gas pressure in the areas under the Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Limited and Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution PLC has dropped. Berthing will begin as soon as the weather becomes normal.”

The Petrobangla authority has apologised for the temporary inconvenience.

On Thursday, Petrobangla’s LNG branch General Manager Md Salah Uddin told bdnews24.com: “LNG supply dropped to about 250 million cubic feet per day for the past two days. We hope that cargo berthing will begin at Summit FSRU by this afternoon and Accelerate Energy FSRU by the evening.”

Petrobangla has not updated the gas supply report on its website since Jun 16. The latest report shows that about 1,000 million cubic feet of LNG was supplied on Jun 15. The national transmission line supplied a little more than 2,800 million cubic feet of gas on that day.

Bangladesh faces a shortage of about 1,000 million cubic feet in gas supply, causing a continuous supply crunch in every sector. The government partially meets that demand with imported LNG.

Currently, less than 2,000 million cubic feet of gas can be supplied from local sources; whereas the demand stands at 3,800 million cubic feet.