Anisul Islam Noor :
The policy makers of the government have thought that Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) will get popularity in the country and it might be alternative to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) soon in the country.
But fuelling automobiles by LPG instead of CNG without considering the fate of CNG pumps and CNG conversion workshops has created concerned among the industry insiders.
The Energy Division under Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources is reportedly receiving applications from the entrepreneurs for licence to install LPG stations and conversion workshops.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) on priority basis has prepared the draft of a regulation spelling out necessary safety measures for safe LPG storage, bottling and transportation. The CNG stations and conversion workshop owners have been kept in the dark about the government initiative for switchover to the use of LPG as auto-gas, it was alleged.
General Secretary of Bangladesh CNG Filling Station and Conversion Workshop Owners Association Farhan Noor told journalists: “The government did not inform us about its move to increase the use of auto fuel.”
“We have learned that government will provide new licences to install LPG re-fueling stations and conversion workshops,” he said.
Sounding a note of worry about the fate of CNG businesses, he said, “Now we are concerned about our businesses.”
“Currently about 60 per cent of auto-vehicles are run by CNG”, Farhan Noor said.
A total of 590 CNG stations and conversion workshops across the country are filling CNG into vehicles, he added.
Farhan Noor opposed the government move to popularise the use of LPG instead of CNG, which he said would destroy the already struggling CNG sector.
“We have investments worth Tk 270 billion in CNG sector,” he said.
He also was critical of the policy guidelines for installing re-fuelling stations and conversion workshops and their maintenance that lacked any bailout initiative for the existing CNG filling stations.
An official said the government feels that the increased use of LPG, to be imported from international market, would help ease the mounting demand on local gas.
As the reserve of local gas is depleting fast, the government wants that it should be used also in manufacturing industries having value-adding capacity, he added.
Short supply of natural gas has pushed the government into rationing supplies to industries, power plants and fertiliser factories.
The government has already suspended new piped gas connections to commercial and household consumers, to cope with an increasing scarcity of natural gas, the official justified.
