Supply of regasified LNG to national gas grid has increased substantially by around 30 per cent riding on the start of importing LNG from spot market last week.
State-run Petrobangla has been supplying around 700 million cubic feet per day, or mmcfd, of re-gasified LNG over the past couple of days, which was around 540 mmcfd earlier, according to Petrobangla statistics.
Bangladesh has started consuming spot LNG taking benefit of lower oil and natural gas prices globally on September 25.
The first cargo carrying 138,000 cubic metre of lean LNG, or liquefied natural gas, reached Moheshkhali LNG terminal in Cox’s Bazar Friday night.
Vitol Asia Pte delivered the first ever spot LNG cargo carrying around 138,000 cubic metre of LNG from spot market.
Vitol Asia offered the best bid at $3.8321 per million British thermal unit, or MMBTu, to bag the deal to supply its first LNG cargo in Bangladesh.
Currently, the country’s LNG import price under long-term deal with Qatar’s Qatargas and Oman’s Oman Trading International, or OTI, ranges around $5.50-$6.0 per MMBtu, said a senior RPGCL official.
Petrobangla has planned to import at least one cargo carrying around 134,000 cubic metre of lean LNG from spot market regularly from November next, he said.
The 14 selected potential LNG suppliers from spot market have already been invited to submit bids for November delivery, said the RPGCL top brass.
Currently, the country has two operational FSRUs, or floating, storage, and regasification unit.
Each of the two operational FSRUs in Bangladesh has the capacity to re-gasify around 500 mmcfd equivalent of LNG.
Excelerate Energy started supplying re-gasified LNG from its FSRU commercially since August 2018, while Summit started supplies in April 2019.
State-run Petrobangla was operating the FSRUs at about half their capacity before as the pipeline was not ready to carry the re-gasified LNG.
Azizjst@yahoo.com