Countrywide gas supply is set to increase from this week as Bangladesh started importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) on Thursday after a hiatus of more than three months, according to a senior Petrobangla official.
"Gunvor Singapore Pte Ltd started delivering its spot LNG cargo on Thursday and re-gasification of the LNG started subsequently," he told the FE.
The October 10-11 delivery window of spot LNG cargo is the first delivery to Bangladesh during the incumbent interim government and the first in the past three months, market insiders said.
The RPGCL floated tenders to purchase this cargo in the first week of October after a lapse of around four months, as Summit LNG Terminal (SLNG) had been offline for months since late May.
Bangladesh previously imported the spot cargo from Total Energies Gas and Power Ltd during July 24-25.
The volume of the LNG was an estimated 3.36 million MMBtu.
Bangladesh stopped issuing LNG tenders for spot purchases after the first week of July as Summit Group's FSRU went offline at the end of May.
The demand for LNG cargoes almost muted from mid-July to the first week of August because of the student-led public movement in Bangladesh.
The demand, however, recovered afterwards, but load shedding is still frequent here as inventory was not sufficient to meet requirements.
With the resumption of LNG imports from spot market, the country's overall LNG regasification would increase to more than 1,000 mmcfd from 701 mmcfd, said a senior official of the Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Ltd (RPGCL).
"After the resumption of operations in September, the interim government now looks to ramp up LNG imports from spot market," he said.
But the government's move to purchase LNG from spot market has been facing a setback as the bids offered fell short of minimum requirement under the Public Procurement Rules (PPR) 2008.
The RPGCL has been receiving less-than-required bids resulting in re-tendering very frequently.
The country's gas-guzzling consumers, however, got a sigh of relief with the resumption of LNG imports from spot market.
Separately, two domestic long-term LNG suppliers from the Gulf region-Qatargas and OQ Trading-are also supplying LNG in line with their annual delivery programmes.
azizjst@yahoo.com