Electricity and gas crisis in capital as well as across the country has deepened.
The consumers are likely to experience about 1,200 megawatt (MW) load shedding, owing to a shortage of 650 to 700 mmcfd supply of gas. The gas supply is at an average of 1,750 mmcfd against the demand of 2,400 to 2,450.
The country has been experiencing frequent power and gas outages for a couple of months as the demand is outpacing the generation of power and gas.
Power Development Board (PDB) sources said electricity load-shedding is shooting up every day triggered by a demand hike against a declining gas-fired power generation.
Due to gas supply shortfall, the plants under the PDB network cannot generate 900MW power, sources said.
“But this situation could have been better if only we could ensure adequate gas supply to the power plants,” said a PDB official.
Sources at PDB said electricity generation in the country was about 5,800MW against a projected demand of 7,000MW.
The state-run Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) has failed to increase the gas supply to cope with the soaring demand.
The production lags behind the target are due to the delay in drilling exploration and development of wells. There have been no major gas reserves found in this period.
The power demand saw a sudden rise due to the withdrawal of a three-year ban on household connections in May and expansion of the grid to some regions including Rajshahi and Bhola.
The supply crunch, coupled 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 months.
Petrobangla Chairman Hossain Monsur told the Dhaka Tribune on Saturday that due to repair works at Koilashtila gas field, 60 mmcfd gas production is currently suspended.
“We hope the production will resume after the repair work is completed within October 2,” he said adding gas shortage will be reduced by a bit then.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Ijaz Hossain, a professor at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) said, “The government has failed to meet electricity and gas demands during this tenure.”
“If the electricity from India was imported earlier, this would have reduced the crisis somewhat,” he said.
One of the reasons for gas crisis was that large gas fields had not been discovered recently,” he said.
“Due to the gas shortage, production of electricity has fallen. We had the capacity to meet the demand, but there is a scarcity of primary energy,” PDB Chairman Md Abdul Wahab Khan told the Dhaka Tribune on Saturday.
“New connections have increased significantly, which has intensified the crisis,” he added.