[Premium] Bangladesh Industry Readies for LNG
Dhaka is preparing Bangladesh industry for the start of imports of LNG from April 2018, state-run Petrobangla chairman Abul Mansur Md Faizullah told NGW October 10.
"We have talked with the potential buyers and are hopeful they will take the entire volume of imported LNG in the very first year of LNG imports as their plants and factories are hungry for gas," he said.
The first port of call for regasified LNG will be the coastal city of Chittagong, where the import terminals will be. Chittagong uses 240mn ft³/d of natural gas, but it needs 417mn ft³/d and potential demand will soar to 581mn ft/d in 2018, he said. The city is expected to use around 341mn ft³/d in the first year, he added.
"Some 300 industries in Chittagong are expecting to get gas from mid 2018," the president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), Mahbubul Alam told NGW October 10. Most of these factories were built before the permanent closure of offshore Sangu gas field in October 2013, he said.
Sangu supplied around 220mn ft³/d in 2006-07, which prompted entrepreneurs to invest around $500mn in the local currency, Alam added.
Industries in new economic zones, now being built in Chittagong, will also buy regasified LNG, the executive chairman of Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (Beza), Paban Chowdhury said adding he already had assurances on that score from Petrobangla. Power plants across the country will also be key consumers of imported LNG, said Faizullah. They are expected to consume 700mn ft³/d of these imports next year, he added.
According to statistics, state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) could have generated 1.54 GW but for a gas supply shortage on October 8. The company needed 374mn ft³/d to run 11 gas-fired power plants. The next day the shortage was worse, cutting electricity generation of around 1.62 GW.
About 1,400 customers are now seeking an industrial gas pipeline connection with Petrobangla, said Faizullah
Bangladesh aims to import 1.40bn ft³/d of LNG by December 2018 as its first LNG import terminal, a 3.75mn mt/yr floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) being developed by US-based Excelerate Energy, is expected to be commissioned in April 2018. Its second, of the same capacity which is being built by Summit Group, is expected to be commissioned by October 2018.
Petrobangla inked the country's first ever sales and purchase deal with Qatar's RasGas in September, for 2.5mn mt/yr of lean LNG over 15 years, and is planning to sign more firm deals, taking advantage of the downtrend in LNG pricing in global market.
M Azizur Rahman