State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said one of the two liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply terminals was sent for maintenance. The problem occurred after bringing it back. This caused problems in gas supply especially in Chittagong and later in Dhaka. The gas supply situation will improve further in the next couple of days.
He said these things while talking to reporters at the secretariat on Sunday (January 21) afternoon.
"We hope, gas shortage in Dhaka will decrease and we`ll see improvement in a day or two," he said while briefing reporters at his ministry.
He said the country`s floating storage and regasification units (FSRU) both started operation again and that situation is getting better gradually.
"However, one of them will undergo scheduled maintenance soon," he said, adding that normally the gas supply experiences some problems during the winter.
"But the government has taken measures to increase the supply of LPG as some 80 percent of the residential consumers now use this liquified gas,"he said.
He said only the consumers in Dhaka and surrounding areas use pipeline gas, while the remaining use LPG.
If the industrial consumers are deducted from the total consumers, the number of household consumers will be 25 lakh, he said.
He also said the government has a plan to install gas metres for all the consumers in the next 3 years.
The country has been experiencing acute gas shortage since the start of the winter season. But the situation drastically deteriorated when one of the FSRUs experienced technical glitch on Friday.
The FSRU was repaired and put on operation that led to slight improvement in gas supply to Chattagram and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, another SFRU, which was on a 45-day scheduled maintenance, also resumed operation leading to a further improvement in the supply.
But the gas crisis was not fully resolved.
Many areas in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Gazipur had been experiencing extreme gas crises or low pressure problems.
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