As the household gas demand is increasing ahead of winter, the government has started introducing gas rationing in the power and fertilizer sectors to make more gas available in Dhaka city, sources have told The Independent. Around 70MMCF (million cubic feet) of gas has already been diverted to household and industrial zones in Savar and Tongi.

Last week, the Prime minister’s office held a meeting on this issue and sent a guideline to Petrobangla, the country’s oil and gas corporation. An official said the decision could make power generation costlier, as some of gas-based power plants would be shutdown and some fuel-based, costly plants run to meet the demand.

“Yes, there should be some gas rationing ahead of winter and we have been asking the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) to shut some plants. We have also requested some fertilizer factories to consider shutting down for a few months,” Jameel A Aleem , director (operations), Petrobangla, told The Independent last week.

“Already, we are taking 50 mmcf of gas per day for our plants as per the request of Petrobangla. For this, we have shut some plants at Ghorashal, Assugonj and Baghabari,” said Abul Baser Khan, member (generation), BPDB.

The country is far behind the gas demand since 2012 and the winter demand adds a requirement of more than 300MMCF per day to meet household needs. Right now, the country produces 2687mmcf of gas per day, when demand is of 3500mmcf.

As per the information available on the Petrobangla website, the corporation produced only 2687.7mmcf gas on November 15 this year and the production was 2699mmcf on October 15. The implementation of the sectorwise allocation has been changed as 953mmcf per day gas for the power sector (on November 15) from 1,096mmcf (on October 15). The fertilizer factories were allocated 143mmcf on October 15 but the amount was reduced to 134mmcf per day. Sources said, out of seven fertilizer factories, four had been shut due to the gas crisis.

“The Jamuna fertilizer factory was requested to shut down but they have not complied till today,” said a senior government official.

“We have already seen that Uttar Khan, Mirpur, and Dhakkin Khan in the capital and some industrial zones have been suffering gas crisis even before the peaking of the demand. So, we have requested the government to allocate more than 20 per cent of gas to meet the demand,” said Mir Mosiur Rahman, managing director of Titas, the country’s largest gas distribution company.

“For example, residential and other customers known as non-bulk customers used to get 900mmcf of gas per day, but this winter the demand will increase to 1100mmcf per day,” the Titas official added.

“We cannot ask anyone to use less but what we are doing is we are disconnecting the illegal gas lines and of those who violate our rule, and thus save some gas for the rest,” Masiur added.

IK/DG