Gas supply had returned to normal after nearly two months. Since August 16, the two floating terminals at Moheshkhali had been supplying Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) at full capacity. However, LNG supply has decreased today, Thursday, due to adverse weather conditions at sea. This reduction in pipeline gas supply may cause some inconvenience to consumers.

A notification issued today by the Bangladesh Oil, Gas & Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) stated that adverse weather disrupted the transfer of LNG to the offshore floating terminals. Consequently, the overall gas supply has declined due to the drop in LNG delivery. The supply situation is expected to normalize as soon as weather conditions in the Bay of Bengal improve.

Petrobangla has expressed regret to consumers for the reduction in gas supply caused by unavoidable circumstances.

Petrobangla sources indicate that while the daily gas demand is 3.8 billion cubic feet, the situation had long been managed with a supply of 2.65 to 2.7 billion cubic feet. Yesterday, Wednesday, the supply stood at 2.6 billion cubic feet. By this evening, the supply had dropped to 2.2 billion cubic feet—a decrease of 400 million cubic feet.

Sources state that 35 to 40 percent of the country’s gas supply comes from imported LNG. Two floating terminals located off the coast of Moheshkhali, Cox’s Bazar, are used to convert LNG and feed it into the pipeline. One is operated by the US company Excelerate, and the other by the local company Summit. Together, the two terminals have a maximum supply capacity of 1.05 billion cubic feet of LNG. Supply from one terminal ceased at 5:00 PM today as its LNG reserves were exhausted. Although a new ship carrying LNG has arrived, adverse weather prevented the transfer of the cargo to the terminal. Since then, the supply has been 590 million cubic feet, whereas it had been around 1 billion cubic feet over the past few days.

Previously, on July 21, supply from the US company Excelerate’s floating terminal was halted following a fire, causing the gas supply derived from LNG to drop by half. A severe gas crisis emerged in the country. Although the terminal was ready for full-scale gas supply by August 15, the supply could not be increased as the import vessels had not arrived. Supply was stepped up after imports normalized this month.