Bangladesh has signed an instrument with Indonesia to open talks to import liquefied natural gas or LNG.
A letter of intent was signed on Sunday between two state-owned oil and gas corporations: Petrobangla and Pertamina.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo is now in Bangladesh for a two-day official visit, according to a bdnews24.
He met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday for the official talks, when a joint statement was signed to launch negotiations for preferential trade agreements.
The countries signed two MoUs on ‘Development of Integrated Gas Infrastructure and Independent Power Producer’ and ‘Foreign Office Consultations’.
A joint communiqué on ‘Cooperation to Combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing and to Promote Sustainable Fisheries Governance’ was also signed on Saturday.
With its gas reserves depleting, Bangladesh is now heavily investing in LNG as it aims to boost its power generation capacity to 24,000 megawatt by 2021.
In September last year, Bangladesh signed its first-ever LNG import deal with Qatar.
Under the 15-year deal, the world’s biggest LNG exporter will supply 1.8 million tonnes a year for the first five years and 2.5 million tonnes a year for the next 10.
Two floating storage and regasification units or FSRU are expected to add gas to the national grid.
The first to be built by Excelerate Energy of the United States is to be commissioned by April and the second by Summit LNG in October.
Bangladesh also looks to add two additional floating LNG terminals.
State Minister for Energy and Power Nasrul Hamid had said Bangladesh could import as much as 17.5 million tonnes of LNG a year by 2025.
