Move to initiate gas supply to new Ctg industries falls flat

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M Azizur Rahman
A government plan to initiate supply of gas to new industries in the fuel-starved Chittagong falls flat as production from Sangu gas field dropped by one-third this month, officials said Saturday.
The Scottish Cairn-operated Sangu gas field is now supplying gas of around 33 million cubic feet ((mmcf) per day, less than one-third of its average daily production of 50 mmcf in September last.
"The sharp fall in gas production from the country's lone offshore Sangu gas field has dented the potentials of supplying gas to the port city despite raising of gas supplies from Bangura and Fenchuganj gas fields a couple of weeks ago," energy secretary Mohammad Mohsin told the FE Saturday.
The government had taken steps to start supplying gas to new industries in July this year considering that there would be no further slide in gas production from the Sangu gas field, he said.
Sangu was producing 50 mmcfd during July this year.
The fast depleting supply from Sangu gas field has now become a concern for the energy ministry, Mr Mohsin admitted.
A senior Petrobangla official said Chittagong region would not get gas more than 10 mmcfd from the additional gas production of around 50 mmcfd from the Irish oil company Tullow-operated Bangura and Bapex-operated Fenchuganj gas fields.
The lingering gas transmission problem in the national grid is depriving the country's commercially important port city of getting gas from the gas-rich northern region, the Petrobangla official said.
Thus the net gas supply to Chittagong will reduce further despite the augmentation of gas supply from two new fields.
This is, however, a big blow to the fuel-starved industrial units of the Chittagong region that have been waiting over last several months to get gas supply on a priority basis following a government assurance.
A four-member committee, headed by Petrobangla director of operations Mahbubur Rahman, was formed for selecting the priority plants for supply of gas.
"No progress has been made unless a short-list of plants is prepared for supplying gas on a priority basis," president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) president Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed told the FE Saturday.
He said the businessmen of Chittagong are still in dark about when they will get new gas connections.
Scores of industrial units have already invested massively in their projects in and around the port city but could not start operation due to lack of gas for last one year.
In September last year, the Bakhrabad Gas System Limited (BGSL), the company entrusted with the supply of gas in greater Chittagong region, sent letters to the Chittagong chamber and the top investors that it could not commit gas supply to new plants before 2011 due to the supply crunch, caused mainly by drastic fall in Sangu production.
Some 68 Chittagong industrial plants have applied for new gas connection. Dozens of them have already set up the factories and are waiting for the fuel supply over the last one year.
The plants, including soybean refinery, paper mills, garment and textile plants and CNG filling stations, have invested at least Tk 10 billion and are counting bank interest every month for failing to go into operation in due time.