The government gives Tk 20 billion from gas development fund (GDF), meant for extracting the domestic fossil fuel, to Petrobangla to spend on LNG imports from the volatile international market.
Sources said there were instructions from the country's energy regulator against diverting the GDF money--saved from gas-price hike--for purposes other than gas exploration.
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) recently allowed the state-run Petrobangla to utilise Tk 20 billion from the GDF temporarily following a request from the energy and mineral resources division (EMRD) under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR), a senior energy ministry official told the FE Thursday.
But the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) in its June 5, 2022 verdict on gas-tariff hike mandated Petrobangla to take money from energy security fund (ESF)--retained earnings of state-run gas transmission and distribution companies and government subsidy.
While announcing natural gas-tariff hike by 22.78 per cent, the BERC had categorically stated that Petrobangla should get Tk 33 billion from ESF, Tk 25 billion from retained earnings of state-run gas-transmission and distribution companies and Tk 60 billion as subsidy from government, totaling Tk 118 billion.
"Petrobangla will have to return the money into the GDF with interest as the MoF has allowed utilizing the fund money as loan," says the official.
Officials say the GDF money usually is kept deposited with Petrobangla and the corporation requires MoF permission to utilize it.
But it is not supposed to utilize the funds for making payment against liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, he adds.
The energy regulator, BERC, had formed the GDF, through a verdict, when it hiked natural gas tariffs by around11 per cent in 2009, with a condition that the additional revenue generated following the hike would be transferred into the fund.
Money from the fund is supposed to be utilized to carry out gas exploration, drilling exploratory, development and work-over wells, conducting seismic surveys, constructing gas-transmission pipelines and installing process plants to augment gas supply.
Sources say Petrobangla previously provided Tk 30 billion to government exchequer from the GDF to meet government requirement.
The BERC last month ordered the corporation to get back the fund's money from the government with interest.
"We are helpless," says energy adviser of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Dr Shamsul Alam.
"This is a proof that the government is in dire straits to foot import bills of energy products," he adds.
"The government must have to check misuse of government money at any cost to come out of the crisis," the consumer-rights campaigner suggests.
Currently, the country's LNG re-gasification dipped near the lowest level as the government tightens energy consumption through austerity.
Country's both the floating LNG-import terminals re-gasified around 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of LNG, half the aggregated re-gasification capacity of the two LNG import terminals.
This nears the lowest level of LNG re-gasification with both the floating, storage and re-gasification units (FSRUs) being operational.
Country's overall LNG re-gasification had dipped below 400mmcfd during the last winter when one out two FSRUs - the Summit Groups FSRU -- was out of operation due to technical fault.
Overall electricity generation fell to around 11,000 megawatts during peak hours from above 13,000MW during pre-austerity period as the government has shut operations of all diesel-fired power plants under the austerity measure to cut import of expensive diesel.
The energy ministry has asked state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) to cut diesel import by up to 20 per cent to save foreign currency, says a senior BPC official.
To cut import bills-part of belt-tightening measures meant for mitigating pressures on foreign-currency reserves--Bangladesh has ceased LNG imports from spot market since July.
Petrobangla, the country's parent gas company, is currently importing some five LNG cargoes every month from two long- term suppliers: Qatargas and Oman Trading International, or OQ.
To cope with energy-supply shortfalls the government instructed on June 20 shutting all shops and shopping malls after 8 pm every day.
It also prohibited illumination in different social gatherings in community centers, shopping malls, shops, offices and houses on July 7.
Separately, a six-hour supply hiatus for compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations from 5:00 pm to 11:00 pm daily is in execution to conserve power and energy.
