Gas crisis going to be a looming threat for economy

Staff Reporter :
Amid the government’s austerity measures to plug the depletion of the forex reserve, the crisis of gas is posing a looming threat to the industry and other gas guzzling sectors.
Already the shortfall of gas has forced the Chattogram Urea Fertiliser factory to shut down its production for indefinite period.
Even gas is a major source for the generation of electricity and the power plants are facing dire crisis of gas to run the production.
Experts said that the overwhelming dependence on imported gas is responsible for it to a large scale.
The government should have paid more attention to the exploration of local gas fields and renewable energies to meet the growing demands.
Even State Minister for the ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid on Friday told the journalists that the demand for gas is going up in the industrial sector which consumes most of the gas.
According to PetroBangla, per day demand of gas is about 3,500 million cubic feet (mmcf) but the current supply of gas is 3,050 mmcf. The local production of gas per day is around 2,300 mmcf, causing a shortfall of around 700 mmcf.
On the hand, Bangladesh imports Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from Middle East countries like Oman and Qatar. Of the imported LNG, some 500 mmcf LNG is supplied to the local grid for electricity production.
But the prices of LNG from the spot markets have also gone up due to rising demand of gas globally.
PetroBangla Chairman Nazmul Ahsan recently told the media that the government has stopped purchasing LNG from the spot market from July due to the price hike. As a result, the gas supply has been decreased by around eight percent, he said.
Sources said that the electricity production is being hampered due to the shortfall of gas supply to the power plants.
The shortage of power generation has created erratic load shedding across the country for hours.
Right now the country is facing about 2000MW load shedding which has been hampering the smooth functioning of different sectors including medium and large industries.
Experts suggested that Bangladesh should reduce the dependence on foreign countries for its energy sufficiency. Rather it should pay attention to gas exploration and other sources.
Even, the Power System Master Plan, 2016 mentioned that gas production from the current domestic gas fields in 2015 was 2,500 mmcf and will reach a peak production of 2,700 mmcf in 2017, then start to decline.
However, gas demand in Bangladesh forecasts a significant increase in future. The demand and supply gap must be filled by LNG gas imports.
The report forecast that the LNG dependence will be increased for electricity generation. It said that the percentage of LNG import will be increased to 40 percent in 2023, 50 percent in 2028, and 70 percent in 2041.
The PetroBangla gave importance to import instead of giving more emphasis of gas exploration in its 26 blocks in the Bay of Bengal.
However, the growing gas crisis has hit the government to think of tapping new gas field.
Petro Bangla said that they had already undertaken a project to explore 46 fields within four years. The project has targeted to exploit 618 mmcf per day to supply to the national grid to meet the growing demand.
However, the looming crisis of gas will not be over soon and such situation will continue till the advent of winter season when the demand for gas comes down.
However, the business community and the industrialists fear that the growing crisis of gas to generate electricity will hamper the economy if the industries don’t run in full swing.
“Production level has started declining in the small-medium-big industries due to the shortage of power supply,” Mostofa Azad Chowdhury Babu, Senior Vice-President of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) told the New Nation.
“We urge the government to keep continue the power supply unabated to the industries to save the economy,” he added.
Meanwhile, the government said that new schedule for load shedding was in the offing, which has also created apprehension what will happen with the economy.