Energy Bangla

Energy electricity and environment news portal

Dhaka Friday,  Mar 29, 2024

Efficient Usage Can Save 543mmcfd Gas

Shamim Jahangir

Efficient usage and proper energy management can save natural gas up to 543mmcfd valuable everyday, which is 1.8 times of Bapex and Sylhet Gas Filed Limited (SGFL) production, he said.
Petrobangla Director (PSC) M Quamruzzaman disclosed this while unveiling a survey report recently.
A total of 664 boilers in different industries across the country use 350mmcfd of gas. But improvement of their capacity for efficient management would bring down the volume of gas required to run these boilers to 292mmcfd thus save 58mmcfd or 17 percent of gas at industrial levels.
Prof Izaj Hossain of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said efficiency improvement of boilers as well as co-generation of energy would save substantial volume of natural gas.
The Petrobangla survey report also said a total of 1,054 captive power generators are most inefficient gas users and are responsible for misuse of 224mmcfd of gas. The Petrobangla supplies 444mmcfd of gas to captive power plants at present. This means, over 50 percent of gas supplied to the captive power generators is wasted everyday.
The country’s gas supply capacity is 2,679mmcfd but it can provide 2,500mmcfd to the national grid against the demand for 3,000mmcfd per day, indicating a deficit of over 500mmcfd.
“We supply 17-18 percent of total gas to captive power generators and the efficiency of these plants is only 15-20 percent,” State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid said on Sunday last.
He said the government would be able to produce 6,000MW of electricity from gas-fired power plants by replacing the inefficient captive power plants.
Power Cell, an extended hand of Power Division recently proposed to withdraw gas supply from the inefficient captive power plants and increase gas supply to base-load combined-cycle power plants.
Petrobangla survey found that at least 90mmcfd of gas can be saved from fertilizer factories if the government renovates the plants and bring improvement in management skill.
“I several times have requested the Energy and Mineral Resources Division to replace the fertilizer factories as like as Karnaphuli Fertilizer Factory Company Limited but it is yet to be implemented,” Prof Izaj said.
Chittagong Urea Fertilsier Factory Limited (CUFL) was installed during the when KAFCO was established.
“But the government allocated poor fund to maintain and rehabilitate CUFL which pushed it to an inefficient estate. Whereas KAFCO received sufficient allocation and for this it gives better service and profit,” he thinks.
Petrobangla also found that older power plants are responsible for misuse of 167mmcfd of gas. It is possible to save the said volume of gas replacing old-aged plants by combined-cycled ones. State minister for power said they have a plan to replace old plants.
The re-rolling mills are also responsible for wasting 4mmcfd of gas out of 22mmcfd supplied to them.
“I have raised my voice during last ten years to improve efficiency to save country’s potential gas reserve but none gave heed to my observations,” Prof Izaj said.
He said the conservation of energy and improvement of efficiency would help increase capacity of the life line in the existing usage pattern of natural gas.
The country can meet demand for the fossil fuel for the next 10-12 years from the existing gas reserves, the state minister earlier said.

Comment here