Energy Bangla

China CAMC Engineering Co Ltd has offered to set up terminals and the related facilities for handling imported liquefied natural gas on build, own and operate contracts.
Officials said that on Tuesday they received  the offer from the Chinese state owned enterprise outside the  tender process.
In a letter sent to the ministry of power, energy and ministry, the Chinese firm  offered government to government credit for   the project.
It suggested that a memorandum of understanding could be signed immediately stipulating surveys and feasibility studies on location, capacity, technology and the designs for the terminals and the related facilities.
The offer says that the facilities would facilitate unloading and storage of imported LNG and feeding it to the national grid pipeline after re-gasification.
It says safety, security, environment protection and control systems would also be put in place.
The Chinese offer came handy for the nation facing serious uncertainties over how to supply natural gas from 21 onshore fields as the current supplies are set to diminish from 2018, according to the forecast of Petrobangla, state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources Corporation of Bangladesh.
The failure to discover new gas reserves forced the government to take the decision to import LNG at up to nine times the price of domestic gas to meet the growing demand for gas to run power stations, industries, transports and kitchens.
On June 6, the government signed MoU with India’s private sector firm, Reliance Power, for building a 3,000MW LNG-based power plant in a coastal district, the location of which await to be worked out.
The contract requires Reliance to build a terminal and the related facilities for the import of approximately seven million tonnes of LNG per year to feed the power plant.
Both the projects could be implemented under the Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provisions) Act, 2010 which would remain valid until 2020 to legalise power and energy projects built bypassing tenders.
After wasting five years on indecisions due to differences between influential groups, in February, Petrobangla awarded the contract to  consortium formed by Astra Oil of the Netherlands and Excelerate Energy Limited of the US for building a floating LNG terminal and the related facilities close to the offshore island Maheshkhali.
The contract was awarded bypassing tender process to build the facilities set to feed 500-600 million cubic feet of gas to the national grid pipeline from June, 2017 after converting imported LNG.
The government has plans to set up two onshore LNG terminals with a combined capacity to handle 12 million tonnes of imported LNG per year and each of them would be designed to supply 500 to 600 mmcfd gas to the national grid or the nearby power stations.
The plans envisage setting up the terminals at Maheshkhali Island of Cox’s Bazaar and Paira in Patuakhali.
Currently, Petrobangla supplies approximately 2,700 million cubic feet of natural gas to the national grid each day against the demand of exceeding 3,500 mmcfd.