Staff Reporter :
The country’s power generation companies are getting only about 900 million cubic feet of gas against demand 1600-1700 million cubic feet of gas to generate enough electricity.
Frequent power supply is being hampered due to shortage of smooth supply of gas and high prices of fuel, as result people of the country are being suffered from severe load shedding.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said that the ongoing load shedding caused by the gas and fuel crisis will not last long.
He said that the current gas production in Bangladesh is 2300 million cubic feet. The rest of the demand is being supplied to the national grid by importing LNG, he added.
“It is sad but true that our own gas production rate has started to drop due to declining reserves in our mines,” the State Minister said in a statement.
“We plan to supply more gas to the agriculture and industrial sectors as we prioritise agriculture and industrial sectors first,” Nasrul Hamid said.
According to the written statement of the State Minister, “Within this year, the second unit of Payra Thermal Power Station and Rampal Power Plant will start operation and 1600 MW of electricity imported from India will be connected to the national grid.”
“Food production is our prime priority and the second one is to continue the pace of export so we need to supply a huge amount of gases to the fertilizer factories which is indispensable for agriculture and industries so we cannot supply more gas for power generation,” State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said in statement.
He also advised everyone to be economical in using gas and electricity.
“The Russia-Ukraine war has plunged the world into a deep crisis just as everyone was recovering from the pandemic. This crisis has affected not only developing countries but also many developed countries as well. The effects of the war have made the fuel market extremely unstable,” his statement read.
