Staff Reporter :
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has said that the government will replace the old gas distribution lines of the capital.
“We are taking on a large project. We will uproot all old gas lines of Dhaka and will set up new ones,” he said while inaugurating a two-day conference of South Asia LNG (liquefied natural gas) Forum 2019 in the capital on Tuesday.
“Cost of the project will be around Tk 1200 crore to Tk 1500 crore,” Nasrul said.
The state minister also said the government is planning to provide a pricing projection of natural gas over the next five to 10 years to help potential businesses to chalk out their future investment plan. “This projection will necessarily help the investors adopt a long-term fiscal planning,” he said.
South Asia LNG Forum organised the conference to focus on the potentials of “utilizing natural gas and LNG through infrastructure development and distribution” to meet the increasing demand for power.
Director General of Power Cell Mohammad Hossain presented a keynote paper on the Crucial Role of Natural Gas and LNG for Power in Bangladesh at the programme while officials from Petrobangla and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) spoke on the occasion.
Twenty-two institutions from 16 different countries are taking part in the conference.
Nasrul said the government now can meet the requirement of natural gas following the LNG import.
The overall natural gas supply will increase further by the year-end when the two operational FSRUs (floating, storage, re-gasification units) would be able to supply around 800-900 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of re-gasified LNG (RLNG), he said. The government will build a new land-based LNG (liquefied natural gas) import terminal to meet the mounting requirement of natural gas, he said.
“Neighbouring India has also shown interest to supply LNG,” he said, adding that the government expedited the works to explore onshore gas fields to augment natural gas supply from local gas fields.
New natural gas reserve has also been identified in Bhola, he said, adding prospects are also there in Madaripur and Mymensingh. To keep the natural gas price affordable, the government would continue blending the RLNG with locally produced gas, said Nasrul.
The government is now importing LNG from Qatar’s Ras Gas and Oman’s Oman Trading International (OTI).
Nasrul said LNG will also be outsourced from spot market to keep its prices reasonable.
