The nationwide natural gas crisis is likely to persist as the full resumption of the US company Excelerate Energy’s Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) at Moheshkhali remains uncertain this month following a fire that occurred six days ago during a ship-to-ship LNG transfer, officials have said.
A high-level Petrobangla delegation, led by its Chairman, Md Abdul Mannan, is scheduled to visit the terminal tomorrow to assess the progress of repair work following the fire.
“Excelerate has assured us that it will resume partial operations of the terminal by 31 July 2026,” Mr Mannan told Just Energy News.
He said the timetable for bringing the terminal’s other boiler back into operation had yet to be determined.
“I will visit the terminal tomorrow to determine the actual cause of the incident and review preparations for resuming operations,” he said.
Mr Mannan added that Petrobangla had no option but to continue rationing natural gas supplies across different consumer categories.
He said priority was being given to supplying gas to power plants, followed by industrial consumers.
According to Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited, the government has reduced gas supplies to the company by 330 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) as part of a nationwide rationing programme to offset the loss of around 450 mmcfd of LNG imports from the Excelerate-operated terminal.
“We normally receive around 1,500 mmcfd of gas, but today we received only 1,180 mmcfd,” Titas Gas Managing Director Engineer Shawnawaz told Just Energy News on Saturday.
He said the company was managing the reduced supplies through a rationing system.
“The gas supply situation has become extremely difficult as supplies have fallen sharply in several areas,” he said.
Titas’ daily gas requirement is around 2,200 mmcfd, while total national demand is estimated at approximately 4,000 mmcfd.
Petrobangla said the Summit-operated FSRU is currently supplying around 512 mmcfd of regasified LNG.
The government has reduced gas supplies to the power sector by around one-quarter under emergency rationing measures introduced after the fire at the Excelerate-operated FSRU.
“We have reduced gas supply to the power sector by 250 mmcfd, bringing total supplies down to around 700-750 mmcfd,” Petrobangla Director (Operations) Engineer Md Rafiqul Islam told Just Energy News earlier.
He said Petrobangla had also cut a further 250 mmcfd of gas supplies to other consumer groups, causing significant disruption to household consumers and compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations.
Energy experts, however, criticised the interim government’s decision to cancel the proposed third FSRU sponsored by Summit Group, which had been scheduled to be connected to the national gas grid in October 2026. They argued that the additional import capacity could have helped cushion the impact of the current supply disruption.