Bangladesh LPG Autogas Station Owners Association has called upon the government to ensure an ‘affordable' supply of energy from gas fields in Bhola to the national grid in cost-effective technology for supporting the economic growth of the country.
LPG Autogas Association President Engineer Mohammad Serajul Mawla said the production of gas-dependent industrial units and power plants will get ‘a relief' from Bhola gas amid increasing demand for energy.
“As the demand for energy increases, Bhola gas will help the economy to some extent but the step of depressurizing this gas and compressing it through CNG compressors for transportation is very costly and it wouldn't bring any economic benefits for the country,” said a press release of LPG Autogas Association on Saturday.
LPG Autogas Association is a commerce ministry-affiliated organization representing about 800 autogas filling station operators across the country.
Recently, Sundarban Gas and Intraco signed a 10-year public-private partnership agreement to connect energy as CNG from the Bhola gas field to the national grid.
Engineer Mawla highlighted the availability and cost-effectiveness of the technology for supplying gas to industrial areas from gas fields in Bhola.
He said the gas from Bhola can be compressed from 1000 psi to 3000 psi pressure through booster compressors and easily transported by water and land through mobile storage.
By doing this, the compression charge will be less than half and the decompression charge will be completely eliminated.
Serajul Mawla further said that hundreds of mobile storages exist in Bangladesh for gas supply from various CNG stations to various garments and industries.
If the government wants, it can allow hundreds of industries that pay the price of feed gas (17.00 per cubic meter) and compress and will bring it to the industry at their own cost.
According to engineers, a domestic 'booster compressor' capable of processing 500 cubic meters of gas per hour costs only Tk40 lakh, while the electricity consumption per hour is only 50 kilowatts, so it will cost only Tk2 to Tk3 per cubic meter of gas.
On the other hand, the existing mobile storage can carry 3000 cubic meters of gas each time. If it costs Tk25,000 to Tk30,000 each time to travel from Bhola to Dhaka, then the transportation cost will be only Tk7 to Tk8 taka per cubic meter.
Therefore, if you do this, the cost will be reduced a lot. Also, since LPG autogas is available in almost all the upazilas of the 64 districts of the country as an environmentally friendly and affordable alternative, the gas used in the CNG sector can be given to the industrial sector because CNG is no longer used in public transport, for example, buses.
CNG is now mostly used in private cars where common people have no use. So the government can take this decision if it deems it necessary in the interest of the country and nation.
Since all CNG stations now have LPG, there is no chance of the owners of CNG stations being affected.
