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The country’s overall natural gas crisis is set to ease from tomorrow (Monday) on completion of repair and maintenance works in one of the country’s two operating floating liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals owned by the US's Excelerate Energy, said sources.
Re-gasified LNG supply from the floating storage and re-gasification unit (FSRU) owned by the US firm will re-start from January 13 noon after a suspension of 72 hours of operation, a senior Petrobangla official said Sunday.
The country’s overall LNG re-gasification fell to 580 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) on January 11 from around 850 mmcfd due to non-operation of the FSRU over the past several days.
Low gas pressure prevailed in some areas of the country due to a reduction in gas supply.
This was the second incident in which Excelerate Energy had suspended LNG re-gasification for repair and maintenance work in Bangladesh in the past two weeks.
Previously, the company suspended LNG re-gasification for repair and maintenance work from January 1 to 4, the official added.
The Petrobangla authorities, however, sincerely regret this temporary inconvenience to the public, the Petrobangla statement concluded.
Sources said the natural gas crisis is now affecting all sorts of consumers, including industries, power plants, commercial users, and household consumers, resulting in a cut in industrial output and the untold sufferings of the commoners.
The compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations are also getting lower than expected gas pressure, which is hampering CNG filling in vehicles.
Power plants are also not getting the required gas to generate electricity.
More than three dozen gas-fired power plants are now shut as the state-run Petrobangla is supplying only around 802 mmcfd of natural gas to power plants against their 2,420 mmcfd demand.
Residents of different areas in the city are facing an acute gas crisis and failing to cook food with the fuel, although they are paying gas bills to the government, it has been alleged.
The country's natural gas output is currently hovering around 2,515 mmcfd, of which 580 mmcfd is regasified imported LNG, according to Petrobangla statistics as of January 12.