A LEAK in the gas pipeline, a priority supply of gas to fertiliser industries and a declining domestic gas production by international oil companies have created a supply shortage, hitting hard household consumers, who constitute about 99 per cent of the client base of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd but receive roughly 15 per cent of the total gas produced. Households in a significant number of areas in Dhaka have woken up for days in the morning to find no gas supply for cooking. The households that generally use liquefied petroleum gas or the ones that opted for gas cylinders in the event of pipeline supply disruption in the winter also faced an increase in prices, which was compounded by a strike that the LPG Traders’ Cooperative Society Ltd called at night on December 7 but called off the next day after a meeting with the Energy Regulatory Commission. The state-owned Petrobangla has put the sudden supply disruption down to an incident in which the underground pipeline under the River Buriganga at Aminbazar in Dhaka leaked. Officials, however, say that the problem has already been resolved, but a stable supply would take more time.
Petrobangla has now for two months been diverting more gas to fertiliser industries amidst a declining gas production by international oil companies. Priority has also been given to the industrial sector so that production in export-oriented sectors stays uninterrupted. The gas production is reported to have declined to 2,578.5mmcfd on January 7–8 from 2,666.8mmcfd a month ago, primarily because production by international oil companies fell to 893mmcfd on January 7–8 from 1,026mmcfd a month ago. An uninterrupted supply of gas to the industrial sector is of utmost importance, but depriving, even if partly, an estimated 3.3 million of the 41 million households appears to be no solution. In this way, Titas Gas has forced consumers to use liquefied petroleum gas over the years. The consumption of liquefied petroleum gas has increased tenfold, having reached 1.44 million tonnes in 2024 from 0.15 million tonnes in 2015. Biomass, especially firewood, is still widely used and accounts for two-thirds of the fuel for cooking in households. But the Integrated Energy and Power Master Plan 2024 aims at replacing traditional fuels with liquefied petroleum gas. Officials say that the supply shortage is unlikely to go away soon because of the limited capacity to import liquefied natural gas.
All the propositions show that there have been problems in matching the plan against the reality. Whilst the government should, therefore, engage with international oil companies to resolve the decline in gas production and mend the oft-quoted misuse and abuse of the supply gas, it should strengthen the Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd to go for hydrocarbon exploration in the long run.
