TDS Desk:

The ongoing gas crisis in the country is expected to ease later this month, as one of the floating LNG terminals in the Bay of Bengal, which suffered damages due to the aftershock of cyclone Remal, is set to resume gas supply from 26 July.

The terminal has already been brought back to Moheshkhali of Cox’s Bazar after finishing repair work in Singapore, officials of the state-owned Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Limited (RPGCL) said.

“Currently, one LNG terminal is providing 600 million cubic feet (mmcf) of LNG to the national grid. Once the second terminal resumes operation, the national grid will get another 500 mmcf of LNG supplied per day,” RPGCL General Manager (LNG) Md Shah Alam said.

“The Summit floating terminal is expected to resume LNG supply from 25 or 26 July. The LNG supply to the national grid has halved since the terminal became inoperational. Once the LNG supply resumes from it, the daily gas supply will exceed 1,000 mmcf. This will reduce the existing gas crisis in the whole country including Chattogram,” added Shah Alam.

Soon after Cyclone Remal hit the coast a broken pontoon floating in the Bay of Bengal hit the terminal – Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU)- damaging the terminal’s ballast tanks, The Business Standard reported on 5 June.

The damage in the terminal, owned by Summit LNG, is causing a shortage of 400 mmcf of gas supply to the national grid, officials of Petrobangla said at the time.

The damaged unit was sent to Singapore for repair and was brought back to the country on 10 July, according to RPGCL.

The country has a demand of 4,000 mmcf of gas daily. Of the demand, 2,635 mmcf is met by domestically produced gas, which witnessed a shortfall of 1,365 mmcf of gas last Tuesday.

Due to the closure of Summit’s LNG terminal, gas supply to power plants has also decreased. As a result, gas-based electricity production has decreased by about 1500 megawatts compared to normal times.

This is not the first time that the gas supply from the floating terminal has been cut off in a disaster.

Earlier on May 12 last year, due to the impact of Cyclone Mocha, supply was stopped from two FSRUs due to security reasons.