Tk 20m of public money 'squandered' a day on paying two LNG terminal owners

The government is counting around US$230,000 (Tk 20 million) per day in rent to two privately-owned offshore liquefied gas terminal owners despite its failure to fully utilise their capacity, an official said.

State-run Petrobangla is re-gasifying around 461 million cubic feet a day (mmcfd) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from two LNG import terminals, which is less than half their total capacity of 1,000 mmcfd, according to Petrobangla statistics as on December 15.

Lower demand during the winter season and failure to purchase LNG from the spot market are among the causes behind re-gasification of poor volume of LNG, a senior Petrobangla official admitted.

The country's first LNG terminal owned by US's Excelerate Energy could alone re-gasify as much as 600 mmcfd of LNG before the commissioning of the second LNG terminal owned by local Summit Group, he said.

Petrobangla has deals with the terminal owners to pay around US$450,000 (Tk 38.25 million) per day in total to re-gasify up to 1,000 mmcfd from the two Floating Storage and Re-gasification Units (FSRUs).

According to the deal, Petrobangla is required to pay Excelerate roughly $237,000 per day and to Summit's around $217,000 each day.

The government is obligated to pay the two companies, though it re-gasifies less, said the Petrobangla official.

Both the deals were struck on a take or pay basis, meaning Petrobangla will have to pay the amount after commissioning of the FSRUs, no matter if it re-gasifies or not.

Both the terminals are designed to re-gasify around 500 mmcfd, the quantity of which has been agreed between Petrobangla and contractors.

Initially, the pipeline constraint was the major barrier to the full utilisation of the terminals.

But the state-run Gas Transmission Company Ltd (GTCL) completed laying all necessary pipelines to supply around 1,000 mmcfd of re-gasified LNG.

Earlier, the delays in construction of pipelines were the major barrier to the FSRUs to re-gasify LNG in full capacity.

Petrobangla has been importing LNG under long-term deals at prices ranging from $6.0 per mmBtu (million British thermal unit) to $10 per mmBtu over the past one and a half years.

Two global suppliers - Qatar's Qatargas and Oman's Oman Trading International - are currently supplying LNG to Bangladesh.

When contacted, energy expert Badrul Imam said this is a classic example of 'wastage of public money."

He said the government should have a proper assessment of the demand and infrastructure capacity before entering into agreements with the private sector.

It is an outcome of the ad-hoc decision from the government high-ups without considering the consequences, said Mr Imam a senior professor of Geology department of Dhaka University.