Country’s energy supply chain is facing serious trouble due to lack of coordination and management failure that has created a hue and cry among the consumers, especially in the Chittagong commercial belt.
Due to a disruption in the gas supply chain, most of the gas-fired power plants in Chittagong faced blackout, forcing to power cuts in every alternative hours during the last couple of days.
“It’s a demand side management failure that is causing the shortage in gas supply in Chittagong,” a top official of the Petrobangla said.
He said the Petrobangla directed Chevron to keep gas production 80 percent until the crisis is over.
The gas crisis in Chittagong was caused mainly due to the withdrawal of over 350mmcfd gas from a single gas field.
In an appeal on June 8, 2015, Chittagong Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Mahbubul Alam requested PM’s adviser Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury to take necessary steps to address the issue.
Alam said the gas supply dropped 50 percent against the demand of 550mmcfd. He said the industrial units suffered a lot due to supply shortage of gas.
State minister for power and energy Nasrul Hamid yesterday directed the energy division secretary Abubakar siddique to take necessary steps for solving the problem.
“After the directive, the gas supply situation is gradually improving,” official concerned said.
Gas production at Bibiyana gas field came down to 850mmcfd against the capacity of 1200mmcfd. The field has a storage capacity of 72,000 barrel of natural-gas condensate, which has increased to 73,400 barrel, hampering gas production at the field severely.
A senior official of Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) said they have reduced electricity generation from gas-fired power plants to 42,00MW against the capacity of 6000MW in the last couple of days.
He said the electricity generation from costly oil-fired power plants again increased to around 2700MW to meet the growing power demand.
“We are seeing lower demand of liquid fuel-fired power generation due to adequate rain in April this year and that is why the demand of petroleum fuel has also dropped by 50 percent,” he said.
Talking about the huge stockpile of gas condensate, an official of Petrobangla said the BPC stopped to procure gas condensate from gas fields.
When asked about the issue, a senior official of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) said they have huge stock of petroleum fuels procured and refined for the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).
The BPC has taken the condensates produced by gas fields for converting those into different petroleum fuels.
BPC officials said they were forced to convert the natural-gas condensate into petroleum fuels as the BPDB has lowered furnace oil consumption for electricity generation due to favourable weather in March, April and May, 2015.
Besides, the Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) of BPC regularly refines 1300-1500 metric tonnes of furnace oil from crude oil, of which a major portion comes from condensate gas.
But the oil refining at the ERL remained halted for last 14 days last month due to lower fuel demand from the BPDB, BPC informed.
In a letter to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division at the end of last month, BPC chairman AM Badruddoza said the BDPB’s furnace oil consumption dropped to 57,150 tonnes and 55,280 tonnes in March and April respectively against the estimated demand of 96,098 tonnes and 92,999 tonnes respectively.
Besides, the demand of fuel uses by BPDB also dropped by 75 percent between May 01-18, 2015. The power plants were supposed to consume 96,098 metric tonnes of fuel in May, 2015.
Meanwhile, the government has allowed 26 out of 40 oil-fired private power plants to import their own fuel. All the 40 oil-fired power plants have a combined capacity to generate 3100MW of electricity.
Besides, the 14 power plants that depend on BPC for fuel supply also lowered their fuel consumption by around 50 percent, that has created huge stockpile of fuels at the BPC, official concerned said.
Though BPC imports fuel for private power pants, it has already allowed 26 oil-fired private plants to import their own fuel.
Former energy adviser to caretaker government Prof M Tamim said sometimes disarray is created in energy supply due to management failure. “The same happened here due to mismanagement,” he observed.