Dhaka’s gas supply to improve in a day or two: Nasrul

DE Online Desk
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid on Sunday said the gas supply situation will improve in Dhaka and adjacent areas in a day or two.
“We hope, gas shortage in Dhaka will decrease and we’ll see improvement in a day or two,” he said while briefing reporters at his ministry.
He noted that both the floating storage and re-gasification units (FSRU) in the country have resumed operation and the situation is gradually improving.
“However, one of them will undergo scheduled maintenance soon,” he said adding that normally the gas supply experiences some problems during the winter.
“But the government has taken measures to increase the supply of LPG as some 80 per cent of the residential consumers now use this liquefied gas,” he said.
He said only consumers in Dhaka and adjoining areas use the pipeline gas while remaining use the LPG.
If the industrial consumers are deducted from the total consumers, the number of household consumers will be 25 lakh, he said. He also informed that the government has a plan to install gas meters for all consumers in the next 3 years. The country has been experiencing acute gas shortages since the start of the winter season. But the situation drastically deteriorated when one of the FSRUs experienced technical glitch on Friday. The FSRU was repaired and put on operation that led to slight improvement in gas supply to Chattogram and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, another SFRU, which was on a 45-day scheduled maintenance, also resumed operation leading to a further improvement in the supply. However, the gas crisis was not fully resolved. Many areas in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Gazipur had been experiencing extreme gas crises or low-pressure problems.