The country’s flagship textiles and readymade garments (RMG) industries are reeling from a crippling gas crisis, threatening an estimated $70 billion in investments amid mounting global trade uncertainty over new US tariffs.
Inadequate gas supply has been forcing Farzana Akter and Rabiul Islam to eat at restaurants every morning for two weeks.
For maintenance work
Looming fertiliser crisis could disrupt food production
Four out of five government-owned urea factories have stopped production due to an acute gas crisis, raising concerns over the availability of enough fertiliser during the ongoing Aman paddy cultivation season and the upcoming Boro paddy season.
Government officials involved have been allowed legal impunity under the provisions of this law.
A two-week-long gas crisis has been affecting homes, factories, and vehicles that run on compressed natural gas, thanks to a dip in supply following the shutdown of an LNG regasification terminal in Cox’s Bazar on May 29.
The government built two compressor stations in 2016 to supply gas at adequate pressure to different districts, but the expensive machinery has been underutilised due to inadequate gas flow.
Gas scarcity is likely to continue till April despite the government’s repeated assurance of scaling up gas supply during Ramadan and the irrigation season as one of the two Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRU) will take longer to complete maintenance works.
The port city has been experiencing a severe gas crisis for more than a week, leaving its residents to use alternative means to cook or buy prepared food.
Good news: Annual Import of US$3 billion Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is to ease the decades-long gas crisis of the country. Import will start in April, 2018 and by October more than one third of the country's gas needs would be imported in the form of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
Pinning hopes on imports, prime minister’s Energy Affairs Adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury has said there will be no gas crisis from the next year.
State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (Bapex) begins extraction of natural gas from Sundalpur gas field in Noakhali.
Amid countrywide severe gas crisis, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says government has taken various steps to improve the gas supply.
The prevailing gas crisis in Dhaka city will persist for three or four days, State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid says.
Tahmina Afaz is a schoolteacher and lives at Ulan in the capital's West Rampura. She doesn't start for work until 7:30am, but since winter began, she has been waking up long before sunrise. "If I get up any later than 5:00am, I cannot finish cooking for my family before I go to work. The gas supply falls after sunrise, so much so that sometimes I cannot even turn the stove on," she says.
