The government has approved the purchase of one spot cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Singapore-based Vitol Asia Pte Ltd at $22.35 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) to help ease the ongoing nationwide gas shortage.
The approval came at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase held at the Secretariat on Thursday, with Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury in the chair.
According to Cabinet Division sources, the LNG cargo will be procured through the Request for Quotation (International) method under Rule 105(3)(a) of the Public Procurement Rules, 2025.
The shipment, the 42nd spot LNG cargo to be procured in 2026, is scheduled to arrive on August 15-16. Vitol Asia emerged as the lowest bidder.
The total procurement cost has been estimated at Tk 9.49 billion, with the LNG priced at $22.35 per MMBtu, including advance income tax.
The latest purchase comes as Bangladesh grapples with an acute gas crisis following an accident at the Excelerate Energy-operated floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) at the Moheshkhali LNG terminal. The accident caused damage to the critical cable systems used to operate the terminal.
The July 21 incident knocked out around 500-600 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of regasification capacity, sharply reducing gas supply to the national grid.
Partial operation of the accident-ridden floating storage and re-gasification unit (FSRU) is expected by Sunday in a sigh of relief to households, industries and CNG-refueling stations across Bangladesh.
Technical experts from the UK and Singapore are replacing spare parts of the wrecked FSRU, owned by Excelerate Energy, a US-based company, a senior official of state-run Petrobangla told The Financial Express on Thursday.
As an outcome of past several days' repair works, one boiler -- out of total two in it -- might start re-gasifying around 300 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of liquefied natural gas (LNG), he said.
Full-scale operation of the FSRU at Moheshkhali island in the Bay of Bengal might resume next week, the official hopes.
The delivery of at least two spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes was affected due to the abrupt shutdown of the FSRU on the Moheshkhali island in the Bay of Bengal.
The cargoes of Gunvor Singapore Pte Ltd and TotalEnergies Gas & Power Ltd could not deliver LNG to the accident-ridden FSRU and remained stranded in the Bay of Bengal, a senior Petrobangla official told The Financial Express on Wednesday.
He said the vessel carrying Gunvor LNG remained stranded in the sea since July 21 and that of TotalEnergies LNG since July 26.
State-run Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Ltd (RPGCL) was able to defer both cargoes following discussions with the suppliers.
Gunvor agreed to defer the cargo to December and TotalEnergies to August.
Petrobangla would not have to count any additional costs due to the deferral of Gunvor's LNG cargo, said the official.
It would, however, have to pay TotalEnergies a "penalty" for the deferral, he said.
Both Petrobangla and TotalEnergies were still in talks to fix the extent of the penalty, he added.
Regarding the deferral of cargoes, the Petrobangla official said Gunvor was awarded a tender by the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase, the highest body to approve public purchase, to deliver one spot LNG cargo over the July 20-21 window at $15.885 per million British thermal unit (MMBtu).
TotalEnergies was awarded a tender to deliver one spot LNG cargo over the July 26-27 window at $16.97 per MMBtu.
The volume of LNG for each of the four spot LNG cargoes was around 3.36 million MMBtu, he added.
Country's overall natural gas supply fell to around 2,114mmcfd on Wednesday from the pre-accident 2,640mmcfd following the closure of the FSRU after the accident on July 21.
Gas-fired power plants are the worst hit as electricity generation of around 2,000 megawatts is being affected due to the FSRU's operation disruption.
The gas-fired power plants are currently getting around 700mmcfd gas against the aggregated demand for 2,524mmcfd gas.
The shutdown has already cut gas supply to the national grid significantly, reducing gas pressure in many areas, disrupting industrial production and squeezing generation in gas-fired power plants.
Long queues of vehicles in front of CNG (compressed natural gas) filling stations across the country have been a regular scene after the accident.
Earlier, at the purchase committee meeting on June 3, approval was given to procure one cargo from BP Singapore and two from TotalEnergies Gas & Power at an estimated combined cost of Tk 23.72 billion.
At Thursday's meeting, the purchase committee also approved a proposal from the Ministry of Industries to import 30,000 tonnes of bagged granular urea from Karnaphuli Fertilizer Company Limited (KAFCO) as the first consignment for FY2026-27.
The fertilizer will be purchased at $357.25 per tonne, with the total procurement cost estimated at Tk 1.33 billion.
newsmanjasi@gmail.com
Azizjst@yahoo.com