Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) Chairman Jalal Ahmed on Thursday said the commission was working to ease import and supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the country to offset the ongoing crisis.
“As the regulatory body, we are working on easing the process of issuing licenses and their renewal and other related matters,” Ahmed told a seminar on “regulatory challenges in the LPG market" at the CIRDAP auditorium in the city.
The BERC chief said that due to the Middle Eastern crisis, particularly centring on Iran, countries like China bought a large volume of LPG from the international market, squeezing opportunities for smaller buyers like Bangladesh.
He said BERC was also working to minimize consumers’ sufferings involving LPG, as the import of the crucial fuel and its distribution in Bangladesh was operated by the private sector.
Energy and Power magazine and the LPG Operators Association of Bangladesh (LOAB) jointly organized the discussion, moderated by the Editor of the publication, Molla Amjad Hossain.
The BERC chief said geopolitics in recent months exposed the energy supply system as critical, as numerous ships and companies were blacklisted in November and December last year, and more are feared to come under such sanctions.
Ahmed said Bangladesh in 2022 imported 1.29 million tones of LPG, 1.28 million tonnes in 2023, while the volume was 1.61 million tonnes in 2024 and 1.465 million tonnes in 2025.
He said the import volume of LPG had declined in the last year.
Energy expert and Vice Chancellor of International University Bangladesh, Professor M Tamim, presented the keynote paper in the roundtable, saying that companies now needed to spend over Taka 1 crore per year license renewals, directly affecting consumers.
“LPG plays a critical role in Bangladesh’s current gas crisis and energy transition,” he said, while around $3.5 billion in investment comes from private-sector-driven LPG industry.
He said LPG supports households, transport, industries and rural access, while it was fully dependent on imports, and therefore logistics efficiency and regulatory stability were crucial.
The BERC provided 52 companies to operate the LPG business, with its chairman saying that out of them, 33 have their own plants, while a total of 17 companies were involved in the import process.
Ahmed said some of the companies imported LPG only once, some imported once a year, but seven or eight companies, Petromax, Omera, Meghna, Jamuna, United Igas were importing every month.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) President AHM Shofiquzzaman said he believed there should be no import duty on a daily commodity like LPG.
LOAB President Mohammad Amirul Haque said LPG unloading from mother vessel in outer anchorage is a “very problematic matter”.
He urged the government to allocate 200 acres of land at Maheshkhali for all the operators who could jointly operate the unloading process in an easy way.
Haque said that currently operators need to visit five regulatory agencies for licenses or other official works, adding that this process should be done by one regulator.
Molla Amjad said reduced regulatory costs would decrease the LPG price by up to Tk100 on a 12kg cylinder, which is widely used.
Energy Division Joint Secretary AKM Fazlul Haque said that LPG is used by about six million families in the country.
Former MP BNP leader Zahir Uddin Swapan said that a positive message was given to the BNP in terms of policy.
“We have learned a lot from the past, are worried about the current system, and will try to utilize the digital facilities available if BNP is elected to power,” he said.
