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US's Excelerate Energy has proposed to increase LNG regasification capacity from its FSRU from early 2023 amid mounting demand for natural gas in the country.
It submitted the proposal to state-run Petrobangla for increasing the capacity by around 26 per cent to 630 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), a senior Petrobangla official told the FE on Thursday.
Although the base-capacity of the proposed FSRU (floating, storage, regasification unit) will be around 630 mmcfd, it would be able to re-gasify as high as 750 mmcfd.
He said that Excelerate has intended to bring a new FSRU having higher regasification capacity that would replace the existing FSRU in early 2023.
The company's currently operational FSRU at Moheshkhali island in the Bay of Bengal has the capacity to re-gasify around 500 mmcfd and it can re-gasify as high as 600 mmcfd.
The FSRU is scheduled to go to dry dock for a 30-day overhaul.
But ceasing of re-gasification from one of the country's two operational FSRUs for one month might result in an acute natural gas crisis across the country.
Currently, Excelerate along with the remaining FSRU owned by Summit group re-gasify around 850 mmcfd of LNG (liquefied natural gas).
Sources said, Excelerate brought in its FSRU in the Bay of Bengal on April 24, 2018. The FSRU was, however, hooked up with the subsea pipeline on August 5 after around three and a half months.
The re-gasification of imported LNG from Excelerate Energy's FSRU - Excellence - started on August 12, 2018.
Technical issues, rough seas and pipeline construction delays had kept Bangladesh's first ever LNG cargo stranded off the south coast of Chattogram, said sources.
Separately, Excelerate has planned to build one more FSRU at Payra in southern Bangladesh having the capacity to re-gasify around 3.75 million tonnes of LNG per year.
The US firm is also in talks to ink a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with state-run North-West Power Generation Company Limited (NWPGCL) along with Germany's Siemens, China's CMC and US's Excelerate Energy to implement a 3,600 megawatt (MW) LNG-based combined cycle power plant at Payra.
The NWPGCL board of directors has already approved the proposed JDA and sent it to the Power Division under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) for approval.
The NWPGCL has already acquired necessary land to implement the LNG-based power plant project, which would be implemented after establishing a joint venture (JV) company.
The feasibility study and environmental social impact assessment study over the power plant project have already been completed.
A concept study on the LNG terminal of the project and gas infrastructure has also been completed and a detailed feasibility study is under process. The power plant will require around 450 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of natural gas to generate electricity.
Officials said Germany's Siemens AG and the NWPGCL inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in November 2017 to implement the power plant.
The power plant would be implemented in three phases along with an LNG regasification terminal and necessary gas pipelines adjacent to the currently under construction Payra 1320 MW thermal power plant site.
Bangladesh has a 15-year contract with Qatargas to import around 2.5 million tonnes per year of LNG, at a 12.65 per cent slope of the three-month average Brent price plus a 50-cent constant.
It has a similar contract with Oman's Oman trading International (OTI) for 10 years at an 11.9 per cent Brent slope plus 40 cents.
It also enlisted 18 firms to import LNG from spot market.