The country's gas crisis is set to continue for at least the next several weeks as one of its two floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals will remain out of operation due to a technical glitch, according to sources.
The Summit LNG Terminal requires repair work to fix the damage caused by a stray pontoon "weighing hundreds of tonnes" during Cyclone Remal, which made landfall last weekend.
Summit Group informed the state-run Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Ltd (RPGCL) of its decision to repair its floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) by dry docking it either in Singapore or the Middle East, according to a senior Petrobangla official told The Financial Express on Wednesday.
Repairs are expected to take three weeks and Summit is currently seeking a repair slot with dry docks, said sources.
The Summit LNG Terminal will need to discharge all onboard LNG before leaving the Moheshkhali mooring facility for repairs, said the Petrobangla official. Some temporary repair work is also required on the LNG vessel to prepare it for onboard LNG discharge, he added.
Discharging the onboard LNG from Summit's FSRU will take two to three days after the temporary repairs are completed, he said. The official could not confirm when the temporary repair work will be carried out.
Currently, an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 cubic metres of LNG remain onboard the Summit's LNG vessel, according to the Petrobangla official.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Summit Group said, "The impact sheared the vessel's outer hull, approximately one metre below the waterline, leading to water ingress into the ballast tanks."
According to assessments by Bureau Veritas -- a French company specialised in testing, inspection and certification, certification societies, and international inspectors, the vessel is now ready to discharge all onboard LNG before it proceeds to a dry dock in either Singapore or the Middle East for repairs, Summit's statement said.
"... The Summit LNG Terminal is expected to return to Bangladesh after repairs, hopefully within three weeks," the statement concluded.
The damage on the FSRU was identified on May 29 and subsequently the authorities began reducing LNG regasification, which reached zero by the morning of May 30, a Petrobangla official said.
Petrobangla, the state-run oil, gas and mineral corporation, may have to ration gas supplies to industries and power plants, sources said. Meanwhile, the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) may need to rely more on oil-fired power plants to cope with the gas shortage.
As a consequence, Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Ltd (RPGCL) may have to defer several LNG cargoes.
Until Summit's FSRU is ready for operation after repairs, Bangladesh will rely on its remaining operational 4.5 million tonne per year (MTPA) capacity FSRU -- Excelerate Energy's FSRU -- to regasify imported LNG.
A senior Petrobangla official said Summit's FSRU only resumed operations in mid-April after a two-and-a-half-month overhaul in a Singapore dry dock.
Summit Group's existing 3.75 MTPA capacity FSRU, located on Moheshkhali Island, began commercial operations on April 30, 2019, and will remain operational for 15 years until 2033.
The FSRU previously went out of operation for three months from November 2021 due to a ruptured mooring line from the mooring system in the Bay of Bengal, leading to an acute gas crisis that affected operations of gas-guzzling power plants, industries, households and CNG filling stations.
Excelerate Energy's FSRU, Excellence, had to regasify 10 per cent more than its official capacity to cope with the send-out shortfall, according to Petrobangla data.
Summit's FSRU resumed LNG regasification on February 28, 2022, to restore normalcy.
Summit is considering declaring force majeure -- a legal clause that allows companies to suspend deliveries due to factors beyond their control -- following the suspension of operations at its FSRU, a Petrobangla official said.
Petrobangla recently signed agreements with the privately owned Summit Group for a new 15-year long-term LNG supply contract starting in January 2026 and for a 4.5 MTPA capacity FSRU.
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