One fire, economy stalls

A fire at a single floating LNG terminal off the coast of Cox’s Bazar has plunged much of Bangladesh into its worst gas crunch in years, idling factories, emptying stoves in millions of homes, and forcing drivers to queue for hours at CNG pumps — a crisis officials say could persist for days as repair crews race to bring the damaged unit back online.

The blaze broke out last Tuesday at one of the country’s two floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs), operated by US-based Excelerate Energy, cutting the country’s LNG-based gas supply by nearly half.

The damage has pushed national gas supply below 2,150 million cubic feet per day (mmcft/d ), down from an average of roughly 2,700 mmcft/d maintained over the past year — against a national daily demand of nearly 3,800 mmcft/d , according to Petrobangla figures. Some estimates put the shortfall at close to 1,800 mmcft/d. Titas Gas, which distributes gas across greater Dhaka, said in a statement Sunday that industrial, commercial, CNG and residential customers under its network are all facing an acute shortage.

The company said pressure would remain severely low in affected areas until the technical fault is resolved, apologised for the inconvenience, and said relevant authorities were working to restore normal supply.

A single fault, a fragile system
The accident has exposed a structural weakness that has been building for years. Bangladesh imports LNG through two FSRUs anchored at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar — one run by Excelerate Energy, the other by Summit — which together account for 35 to 40 per cent of the country’s daily gas supply.

Before the fire, LNG imports were contributing an average of 1.05 billion cubic feet a day; after the blaze at Excelerate’s terminal, that figure fell to just 560 million cubic feet by Friday.

Two senior Petrobangla officials told the media recently that the shortage is not due to a lack of available LNG itself — a newly arrived carrier was simply diverted away from the damaged terminal and will return once repairs are complete.

The terminal has two boilers; one was damaged in the fire, but officials say bringing the undamaged boiler back online could restore an additional 300 mmcft/d . Petrobangla has urged the operator to prioritise that fix.

Technical teams from the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates have arrived at the site, and Petrobangla met with Excelerate representatives on Thursday to discuss restarting the facility. No firm timeline for full repairs has been given.

The immediate emergency, however, sits atop a longer-running decline.

Domestic gas production has fallen by roughly 900 mmcft/d over the past six years — from about 2,500 mmcft/d in 2020 to around 1,600 mmcft/d yesterday — even as demand has continued to climb, leaving the country increasingly dependent on imported LNG to fill the gap.

A senior official said Titas Gas alone was receiving about 1,200 mmcft/d against demand of roughly 1,900 mmcft/d , down from about 1,500 mmcft/d before the terminal fault, much of it earmarked for power generation and fertiliser production.

Factories grinding to a halt
The industrial toll has been steep. The Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) says more than 40 per cent of factories have either suspended production entirely or been badly disrupted, with output down by half or more in several major industrial belts.

“About 90 per cent of the factories in my own industrial group have been forced to shut because of the gas crisis,” BTMA president Shawkat Aziz Russell told reporters, warning that prolonged disruption could cause mills to miss export deadlines while still bearing the cost of wages and fixed overheads.

Gazipur, Savar, Ashulia and Narsingdi have been hit hardest. In parts of Gazipur, gas pressure has dropped to just 1–2 psi against a required 5–10 psi; one factory in Kaliakair has seen daily output collapse from 60 tonnes to 10.

In Narsingdi, several units have halted dyeing, finishing and knitting lines altogether. Savar and Ashulia, home to roughly 1,200 factories, have seen production fall by about half, with many manufacturers now paying a premium for alternative fuels just to keep shipments moving.

Households cooking on wood and electricity
The crisis has reached deep into ordinary homes across Dhaka and beyond, where weak pressure has left families unable to cook and pushed many toward electric stoves or LPG cylinders — and higher bills.

Moushi Akhtar, who lives in East Razabazar near the Farmgate area, said the pressure at her home has been failing for two weeks.

“We have been passing through a very difficult situation for the past two weeks.

After 10 a.m., there is usually no gas at all. How we will cook and how we will feed our children — the government should fix the problem urgently,” she said.

Her family has switched to an electric cooker, while many neighbours are cooking on wood-burning stoves in building garages, she also added.

Transport has not been spared. Long queues have built up at CNG filling stations, many of which are struggling to operate at all because of poor pressure.

Alim, a CNG driver who had been queuing at a Mogbazar filling station since dawn, said he had still not managed to refuel after several hours.

Another driver, Mausd, said the wait was eating directly into his working hours — and his earnings.

Power generation has also taken a hit, with gas supply to plants falling from around 1,000 mmcft/d to roughly 700 mmcft/d , adding further strain to an already stretched grid.

Government response
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Aninda Islam Amit said Saturday that repairs to the FSRU were under way and that supply would improve gradually, with Petrobangla and a private contractor working jointly on the fix and the energy department monitoring the situation around the clock.

Petrobangla says domestic and foreign technical teams are working to identify and repair the fault, though it has not given a firm timeline.

Looking beyond the immediate crisis, the government says it is working to reduce reliance on imported gas, with plans to drill 100 new wells and a recently approved Tk 729 crore project to sink five wells in Begumganj and Sunamganj.

Officials are also weighing a fourth FSRU, additional LNG import routes, bringing gas from Bhola into the national grid, and fresh drilling and workover programmes at existing fields, alongside efforts to attract new exploration investment.

Energy expert Dr. Ijaz Hossain said the episode underscores a deeper vulnerability: Bangladesh needs at least 15 days of gas storage capacity, along with additional regasification facilities and a land-based LNG terminal, since floating units remain exposed to bad weather and operational failures.

For now, with no firm date for full repairs, households, factories and drivers across Dhaka and its surrounding districts are bracing for the shortage to continue.