Natural gas supply finally reaches Khulna

KHULNA, Sept 13 (BSS): The long-awaited natural gas supply through pipelines finally reached Goalpara area under Khalishpur Police Station in Khulna city.

'The gas packing was completed by using a newly-built pipeline on September 3 and the gas officially reached the industrial belt of the country's southern parts of Khulna meeting the three-decade long demand of the residents of this region , said an official.

However, the gas initially will be supplied to the 225 Mega-Watt (MW) Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP) of the North-West Power Generation Company Limited (NWPCL) of the Khalishpur industrial area as part of the plan to supply gas to power plants.

Subsequently, the gas will be supplied to the proposed "Rupsha 800 MW CCCC " within the newsprint mill areas.

Officials of the power plant told the news agency on Sunday that the current cost of generating electricity using diesel is Tk 22 per unit and the same will be possible to reduce it to Tk 8.5 after using gas.

On December 13, 2006 "Gas distribution cell in the South-West" was formed under Petro-Bangla in the wake of mass movement and the process of expanding gas line to the South-West started afterward.

With the financial help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and after 10 years of work finally the gas lines reached till Arongghata in 2016 under two projects.

Later on 2017, the NWPCL authority proposed to supply the gas to their "North-West Power Generation Company Limited's power plant" situated in Goalpara, Khalishpur of the city and NWPCL invited international tender and has appointed Messrs. China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company Limited.

NWPCL signed a contract on 29 November, 2019 for construction of the pipelines, and field level work began on October 1, 2019 to expand the pipeline from Arongghata Gas Transmission Company Limited (GTCL) city gate station (CGS) to Rupsha 800 Megawatt and 225 Mega-watt power plants.

The General Manager (Planning and Development) of Sundarban Gas Distribution Company Limited Engr. Md Salahuddin who is also in charge of distribution of gas in 21 districts of the south-west region said, a line was constructed from Arongghatas GTCL city gate station to the power plant premises.

Gas packing was done in this pipeline at 280 psig (pressure per square inch) on September 3.

He said 35 million cubic feet of gas would be required to supply to the Khulna 225 MW CCPP and 62.50 million cubic feet of gas to the Rupsha 800 MW CCPP everyday.

Executive Engineer of NWPGCL, Ezaz Mamun said at first the gas would be supplied to Goalpara 225 MW power plant but it would take a bit more time to complete construction work of this power plant.