Country has significant gas reserves: Tamim

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FE Report
Bangladesh has significant gas reserves that could be discovered if sufficient exploration works were carried out, Chief Adviser's Special Assistant M Tamim said Wednesday.
"I believe the country has new gas reserve potentials of at least 10 - 15 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). Necessary exploration and drilling works are required for its discovery," he said while speaking as the guest speaker at the luncheon meeting of the France-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry at a city hotel.
Despite having potentials the country did not carry out natural gas exploration works in the last decade particularly in 1998-2006, Mr Tamim, also an energy expert, lamented.
The incumbent government, however, allocated around US$500 million to strengthen the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Bapex) and carry out necessary exploration works, he said.
Professor M Tamim said energy demand over the last few years also soared greatly due to tremendous industrial growth along with setting up of a huge number of compressed natural gas (CNG) stations across the country.
The CNG filling stations numbering 347 are now consuming around 6.0 per cent of the total gas production, he added.
To shrug off the looming energy crisis Mr Tamim underscored the necessity to exploit the potencies of the country's multiple energy sources.
Coal could be a vital energy source to meet the mounting energy demand, said the special assistant.
Energy conservation through efficient use of energy could also be a way to ease the mounting growth in energy demand, he added.
The government is also working on the potentials of exploiting nuclear energy and framing necessary legislations as required by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for establishing a nuclear plant, he said.
He said the government is also making contacts with many countries that have nuclear energy technologies to transfer their technologies to Bangladesh.
"But a lot more work is needed to install a nuclear plant in the country," he added.
Mr Tamim also supported the government move for an upward adjustment of natural gas price as he said the government was supplying gas and electricity at the lowest rates in the world.