Govt to resume natural gas condensate export

The government has decided to resume export of natural gas condensate (NGC), after a four-year break, on higher receipt of the spinoff from increased gas production, said officials.
Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) Chairman A.M Bardrudduja told the FE Wednesday that the Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) had already asked for reinitiating export of condensate.
This combustible substance comes out with natural gas from the gas-fields as a byproduct.
The decision to reinitiate exporting condensate was necessary to ensure uninterrupted production of natural gas in different gas-fields across the country, a senior Petrobangla official said.
"To cope with the oversupply of condensate from the fields, Petrobangla had to ask several gas-production companies to scale down natural gas production," said the official.
The BPC has already invited bids from interested buyers to sell around 120,000 barrels of condensate on free-on-board (FOB) basis from Chittagong seaport.
The bid-submission deadline is August 03 and the offer validity is until August 11.
Condensate can be refined into different petroleum products like petrol, octane and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
The BPC earlier had exported condensate only for three years since 2009 until 2011. Some 18 parcels of similar volume were exported at the time.
BPC usually collects condensate as a byproduct from different gas-fields owned and operated by different subsidiary companies of the state-run Petrobangla and international oil companies (IOCs).
The country's average condensate production is currently around 8,800 barrels per day, which is set to increase significantly in future with the increase in overall natural gas output.
The condensate is usually purchased for a number of private and public fractionation plants, petrochemical companies and the BPC's wholly-owned subsidiary Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) mainly for producing petrol and diesel and LPG.
But the supply of condensate increased recently with the increase in natural gas production from around 2,300 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) to around 2,700 mmcfd within the past several months.
Besides, some private petrochemical companies are not purchasing condensate from local sources as they prefer import, resulting in stockpiling of condensate, said the BPC official.
In line with the instructions from Petrobangla several gas-production companies had reduced natural gas production only due to limitations of condensate-storage capacity, said officials.
US's Chevron had to cut down gas production several times from Bangladesh's largest Bibiyana gas-field in northeastern Sylhet region as the condensate storage surpassed capacity.
"Gas production from Bibiyana alone had to be cut by 350 mmcfd in June against its capacity of 1,200 mmcfd due to the condensate-storage limitation," said a senior Petrobangla official as an instance.
He said Bibiyana has a storage capacity of 72,000 barrels of condensate but condensate production increased to around 73,400 barrels, hampering gas production seriously, he said.
    mazizur.rahman@outlook.com