Gas supply drops as Excelerate terminal shuts down

The floating LNG terminal (FSRU) of Excelerate Energy at Moheshkhali suspended gas supply around midday due to the absence of an LNG cargo on Wednesday. With the terminal’s stored LNG exhausted, gas is currently being supplied only from the Summit terminal.

An official of Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Limited (RPGCL) said the last of the LNG stock at the Excelerate terminal was depleted around 2:40pm on Wednesday, after which supply from the terminal stopped. Two responsible officials linked to LNG supply confirmed that the supply was halted because of the lack of LNG stock.

According to Petrobangla data, total gas supply in the country at 12 noon on Wednesday (August 19) stood at 2,289 million cubic feet, of which 1,628 million cubic feet came from domestic wells and 661 million cubic feet from LNG. By around 6pm, however, LNG supply had fallen to 562 million cubic feet, while domestic gas supply remained at approximately 1,627 million cubic feet. As a result, total gas flow into the national transmission line dropped to 2,189 million cubic feet.

Petrobangla oversees LNG imports with the approval of the Energy Division, while its subsidiary RPGCL is responsible for the imports. Sources at Petrobangla and RPGCL said several cargoes had been ordered through the direct procurement method outside the regular process to purchase LNG at lower prices. Four of these were scheduled to arrive this month, but none has arrived. The non-arrival of the cargoes purchased under the direct method has worsened the crisis, the sources added. Even though the terminal is ready, LNG cannot be supplied.

There are two floating terminals at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar for supplying imported LNG. One belongs to the US company Excelerate Energy and the other to the domestic company Summit. The Excelerate Energy terminal was shut down after a fire on 21 July. Supply increased last Saturday when the Summit terminal became fully operational and the Excelerate terminal partially restarted. However, with no new cargo available, the Excelerate terminal, which had begun partial supply from old stock, saw supply decline from Monday and stopped completely on Wednesday after three days.

Relevant officials said the main reason for the shutdown of the Excelerate terminal is the shortage of LNG cargoes. Earlier, some confusion had arisen over the repair of the terminal’s boiler. Excelerate had initially said it would take 72 hours to restart the boiler. Although it was later reported that the boiler had become operational, there was insufficient LNG stock to keep the terminal running. As a result, even after the boiler was operational, it was not possible to continue gas supply from the terminal due to the lack of an LNG cargo.

A cargo is expected to arrive tomorrow which may be linked to the Summit terminal. A relevant source said a cargo for Excelerate may arrive on 23-24 August. This means the Excelerate terminal is likely to remain shut for the next few days and the gas crisis is expected to worsen further.

Daily gas demand in the country is 3,800 million cubic feet, against which about 2,700 million cubic feet is supplied to manage the situation. Of this, 1,050 million cubic feet comes from LNG, which is fed into the pipeline from the Excelerate Energy and Summit terminals. The Excelerate Energy terminal has a daily capacity of 600 million cubic feet and the Summit terminal 500 million cubic feet.

Last Friday afternoon, when both LNG terminals were shut, total gas supply in the country fell to 1,640 million cubic feet a day. That evening Summit began supplying 90 million cubic feet. With the increase in Summit’s supply, total gas supply rose to 2,420 million cubic feet at dawn on Saturday. Supply fell to 2,400 million cubic feet on Sunday and 2,280 million cubic feet on Monday.

After Excelerate shut down on Wednesday, gas supply dropped to 2,180 million cubic feet. On Tuesday, 660 million cubic feet had been supplied from LNG, which fell to 550 million cubic feet on Wednesday after the Excelerate terminal stopped supply. This has intensified the gas crisis across the country.