Gas Pressure to Fall Across Bangladesh for Three Days From 4 November

Gas pressure is set to drop across Bangladesh for three days from Wednesday, 4 November, as Summit LNG terminal maintenance begins at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar. State-run Petrobangla announced the shutdown on 1 November and described the work as emergency maintenance.

During the Summit LNG terminal maintenance, regasification will stop from 8am on 4 November until 4pm on Saturday, 7 November. Regasification is the step that turns imported liquefied natural gas back into gas so it can flow into the national grid. While it is suspended, the LNG fed into the grid will fall from 920 million cubic feet a day to 600 million, a cut of 320 million cubic feet daily.

Bangladesh has two floating storage and regasification units with a combined capacity of 1,100 million cubic feet a day. Imported LNG now supplies a large share of the country’s gas. On 31 October, it provided about 942 million cubic feet of the roughly 2,520 million cubic feet sent to the grid, around 37 percent, according to Petrobangla figures reported by The Business Standard.

Petrobangla warned that consumers in several parts of the country may see low pressure during the shutdown. It did not say which areas or sectors would be hit hardest, and it gave no further detail on the repair work. The agency said similar maintenance was carried out last December.

Pressure drops of this kind are usually felt first at household stoves, CNG filling stations and factories that run boilers and generators on grid gas. Families that cook on piped gas may want to prepare food early on Wednesday and keep an LPG cylinder ready as a backup. Owners of CNG-powered vehicles could consider refuelling by Tuesday, and factory managers may need to adjust production plans for the Summit LNG terminal maintenance period.

How quickly supply returns to normal after 4pm on 7 November will depend on Petrobangla’s next announcement.

Originally reported by Sarakhon.