The government is working towards setting up a land-based LNG terminal, which will double the country's regasification capacity to 15 million tonnes per year by June 2023.
Presently, two LNG import terminals having floating, storage, regasification units (FSRUs) with a capacity of 3.75 million tonnes per year each are operating at Moheshkhali.
They are regasifying around 550 million cubic feet of LNG per day (mmcfd), almost half of their total capacity of 1,000 mmcfd.
A total of 12 global firms and their joint ventures are now vying to bag the contract to build the country's first land-based LNG terminal at Matarbari, which will handle 7.5 million tonnes of LNG per year (Mtpa).
Of the 12 firms, four are from Japan, two from Bangladesh, and one each from the Netherlands, France, Qatar, Hong Kong, Korea and India.
"We are now scrutinising the EOIs (expression of interests) submitted by the firms and will soon shortlist them," said a senior official of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR).
The shortlisted firms would then be asked to submit the request for proposal (RfP) for implementation of the project, he told the FE.
The Japanese firms that submitted the EOSs are the Mitsui & Co Ltd; the Japan Investment Corporation for Matarbari Regas Terminal, a joint venture of Inpex Corporation, Sojitj Corporation, Kyushu Electric Power Co and local Unique Hotel and Resorts Ltd; another joint venture of Marubeni Corporation and Osaka Gas Co Ltd; and a separate joint venture of Sumitomo Corporation and Chungko Electric Power Co. Inc.
The joint venture of local Summit Corporation, Mitsubishi Corporation and Jera Co. Inc. and the joint venture of United Enterprises & Co. Ltd., Posco International Corp. and Korea Gas Corporation are the two Bangladeshi firms eyeing to win the contract.
The Shell Gas and Power Development of the Netherlands, the joint venture of Total Gas Electric Holdings and Total Gas and Power Business Service of France, the joint venture of Qatar Petroleum LNG Services and Exxon Mobil of Qatar, Samsung C&T Corporation of Korea, the joint venture of Poly-GCL Petroleum Group Holding Ltd. and H Sterling Group PTE Ltd of Hong Kong have also submitted their EOIs.
The proposed LNG terminal will be built by the selected sponsor on build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) basis at Matarbari in Cox's Bazar district near the Bay of Bengal.
The project company will own, operate and maintain it for 20 years.
State-run Petrobangla started regular imports of LNG from Qatar's RasGas on September 9 in 2018.
Apart from RasGas, Oman Trading International also has been supplying LNG to the country under long-term deals.
Currently, the country's overall natural gas production is around 3100 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), including the supply of re-gasified LNG (liquefied natural gas) to the tune of around 550 mmcfd, as against the demand for around 4,000 mmcfd.
