The Government expects gas supplies to return to normal within two to three days after the country’s floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal resumed operations following a nearly two-week outage caused by a fire, said Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood on Thursday.
The floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), operated by US-based Excelerate Energy off the coast of Maheshkhali, restarted gas supply to the national grid early on Thursday after repairs to technical faults triggered by a fire on 21 July.
“Gas supply was disrupted due to a technical fault in the FSRU, which was fixed this afternoon,” Mahmood told reporters at the Energy and Mineral Resources Division.
“It will take at least two to three days” for supplies to return to normal, he said, adding that gas transmission had resumed and pressure across the national network would improve gradually.
According to Petrobangla and sector officials, the terminal resumed supplying gas at 3:10 a.m. on Thursday at an initial rate of around 200 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), taking total LNG-fed supply to approximately 660 mmcfd.
Output is expected to increase progressively over the next four to five days as additional processing units are brought back online.
The shutdown created a shortfall of around 500 million cubic feet of gas per day, reducing imported LNG supply by nearly half and causing widespread shortages. Low gas pressure disrupted industrial production, household supplies and compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations, while reduced fuel availability forced several gas-fired power plants to cut generation, leading to increased electricity load-shedding across the country.
Bangladesh’s daily gas demand is estimated at about 4 billion cubic feet, against normal supplies of roughly 2.7 billion cubic feet from domestic production and imported LNG. Energy officials said the restoration of the terminal should gradually ease supply constraints and improve electricity generation, provided LNG cargo deliveries continue as scheduled.
Mahmood also addressed complaints over unusually high electricity bills, urging consumers to submit disputed bills for verification. He said electricity tariffs had been revised for the June-July billing period and promised that any billing anomalies would be examined.
Separately, the energy minister met Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi in Dhaka to discuss bilateral issues. Mahmood described the meeting as routine, saying the neighbouring countries had a broad range of shared interests requiring regular engagement.