Gas crisis remains almost the same as it was five years ago as the demand has far outpaced the supply although over 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) gas has been added to national grid during the period.
The state-run Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) has utterly failed to increase the gas supply to cope with the soaring demand.
The production lags behind the target due to delay in drilling exploration and development wells. There was also no major gas reserve found in this period.
In the beginning of 2009, when this government took office, there was a shortage of 650 to 700mmcfd with supply averaging 1,750.
After about five years now, the shortage remains within the same range 650 to 700mmcfd while an average daily supply of over 2,300mmcf cannot cope with the demand that soared to 2950 to 3,000mmcf per day, according to an unofficial report of the Energy Division that compiled data from the gas distribution companies.
In 2010, the present government announced a plan to add 1,085mmcfd gas to national grid by June this year. In 2011, the government revised the target upward to 1,920mmcfd. With no visible progress in drilling and exploration works, the government last year lowered the target to 1,365mmcfd.
But Petrobangla has so far been able to add 553mmcfd from several gas fields including the two newly-discovered ones, which is far away from meeting the demand and estimated target.
Power generation has increased in some gas-fired power plants while production at three fertiliser factories has also resumed after Petrobangla increased gas supply for power generation to 950mmcfd from 800mmcfd, while fertiliser plants are consuming 180mmcfd up from 80 earlier.
The demand saw a sudden rise due to withdrawal of a three-year ban on household connections in May and expansion of network to some regions including Rajshahi and Bhola.
The government had stopped giving new gas connections for residential purposes on July 13, 2010 and for commercial, power plants, fertiliser and industrial purposes since July 21, 2009 citing supply shortage.
The supply crunch, couple with a surge in demand for households, has led to an acute gas crisis in all segment of consumers industries, commercial, households and CNG stations in the capital and elsewhere in the country for the last few days.
As per the plans undertaken, a well should take only three to four months for drilling and another three months to provide gas to the national grid.
A couple of months may be needed for an exploratory well, meaning that a newly-discovered well should get ready in eight months for supplying to the pipeline. But it took more than one year to get gas from the discovery of Noakhali’s Sundalpur gas field and Srikail in Comilla.
It took around two years to get supply from a development well no four at Fenchuganj field and no three at Salda, which should have taken hardly five months. Other development and work-over wells also took extra time.
On the other hand, Gazprom, the Russian gas extraction company, was supposed to complete drilling 10 development wells at different gas fields within December this year. A contract in this regard was signed in April last year to add around 250–300mmcfd. According to the deal, four wells were to be drilled in Titas Gas Field of the BGFCL, one in Rashidpur Gas Field of the SGFL, two in Shahbazpur, one each in Semutang, Begumganj and Srikail of Bapex.
Gazprom has so far drilled one well at Srikail, which is generating 20mmcfd.
Besides this, two exploration wells were drilled at Kapasia structure in Gazipur and Sunetra structure in Sunamganj-Netrakona recently. Those were abandoned after no gas was found there.
“The gas demand is too high for us to meet as our resource is limited. Hence in the last five years we worked hard, but due to complexities we could not meet the demand,” Petrobangla Chairman Hossain Monsur told the Dhaka Tribune recently. “Drilling for gas well is a lengthy task. If we find any problem while drilling, it takes more time to solve.”
He said Gazprom was supposed to dig 10 wells but they could complete one so far. “We are unhappy with that. If they could do their work in time, gas crisis could be kept at a minimum level,” the Petrobangla chief said, hoping that the state-run agency will be able to supply at least 200mmcfd more gas from several gas fields by December.
Meanwhile, 500mmcf LNG (Liquidified Natural Gas) is to be imported from Qatar in October this year. But no contractors have been appointed yet to build an LNG terminal.
Power sector is the biggest consumer of gas around 43% of the total supply.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Buet teacher Prof Ijaz Hossain said: “Pertobangla could not explore any major gas reserve in the last five years. They have a lot of failures in implementing the projects.”
The successive governments were not highly committed to the development of the sector, he alleged.
“Theft and irregularities are also among the reasons behind the shortage and Petrobangla seems failed to control the culprits responsible,” he said.