The government has approved a proposal to implement a land-based Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal at Matarbari in Cox’s Bazar under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative.
The approval came during a virtual meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase, chaired by Finance Adviser Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed, on Thursday.
The new terminal is expected to play a significant role in re-gasifying imported LNG and addressing the country’s growing natural gas demand. At present, Bangladesh faces a supply shortfall of over 1,200 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) against a demand of 4,000 mmcfd. The government aims to meet 70 percent of this demand through LNG imports.
In line with this strategy, the committee also approved a proposal to import one LNG cargo from Singapore. According to a submission by the Energy and Mineral Resources Division, Petrobangla will procure the cargo from Vitol Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore, through the international quotation method. The estimated cost for the cargo is Tk 598.30 crore.
In a separate development, the contract price for ILF Consulting Engineers, Abu Dhabi, the consultant for the Single Point Mooring (SPM) with Double Pipeline Project, has been increased by $859,000 to a total of $2.88 million to facilitate the appointment of an operations and maintenance contractor.
The meeting also gave the green light to several other procurement proposals:
The Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will procure 2.20 crore litres of refined palm oil through the local Open Tender Method (OTM) from Shabnam Vegetable Oil Industries Ltd, Dhaka, at a cost of approximately Tk 356.82 crore. The per-litre price of palm olein is set at Tk 162.19.
The Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) will procure 30,000 metric tonnes of bagged granular urea fertilizer from KAFCO, Bangladesh, at a cost of Tk 142.87 crore. The per-tonne price of the fertilizer is $390.37.