Energy Bangla

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Dhaka Thursday,  Mar 28, 2024

Ministry Takes Projects To Ensure Energy Security

Syed Shukur Ali

The government is set to implement a series of projects during the upcoming 2016-2017 to face growing energy demands and ensure the energy security, officials said.

“We planned a series of measures to augment energy production in the coming fiscal . . . these include drilling of new gas wells, installing transmission pipeline, importing LNG to gear up the production,” energy and mineral resources Division’s acting secretary Nazimuddin Chowdhury told.

He said the coming fiscal expected extraction of eight million tonnes of coal from Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Limited and one million tonne of granite from Maddhapara Granite Mining Company Limited as part of the energy augmentation campaign.

He termed the projects to “vital” for the energy security adding that these were designed keeping in view of the government’s Vision-2021 for the sector.

Chowdhury said nine wells would be drilled expecting to extract natural gas in new fields while 100 km transmission pipeline would be built to supply gas in the north-east and south-western regions in the coming fiscal.

In a major policy step, he said, importable Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) would be added to the national grid to meet the enhanced energy demands particularly to facilitate the industries in and around the port city of Chittagong.

Officials familiar with the plan supplemented Chowdhury saying they expected 750 million litres of petrol, diesel, octane and kerosene and 25.23 million litres of LPG to be produced from condensate fractionation in different gas fields.

They said state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (BAPEX) and International Oil Company (IOC) were also expected to carry out some 800 km 2-Dimension and 400 square km 3-Dimension seismic surveys to discover new gas fields in the next one year.

The other major projects designed for the coming fiscal included construction of pipeline for crude oil and high speed diesel, storage tank, installation of Jet-A-1 Hydrant fueling system, expansion of storage capacity of Kurmitola Aviation Depot (KAD).

The officials said the state-run Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) was expected to witness its increased capacity while the ministry also proposed installation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) plant, underground pipeline for transporting petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) products.

The government has a schedule to set up six compressor stations in various areas of the country due to decrease of the wellhead pressure of the gas fields.

“Some 40,000 prepaid/EVC metres will be set up in 2016-2017 FY to ensure energy security and reduce the system loss in the domestic customers and ensure the efficient use of natural gas,” an energy division official said.

He added that a pilot project to supply LPG gas will be introduced on cluster basis for the domestic customers in areas which were unlikely to come under the coverage of natural gas supply.

Apart from these, online billing system will be introduced by the distribution companies under Petrobangla and based on GIS (Geographic Information System) digital map of gas pipeline and gas installation, the official said.

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