DOMESTIC GAS SUPPLY High pay for LNG fails to resolve crisis

The same old gas crisis is back making life miserable in the capital with the year’s coldest winter month in progress.

Winter-time gas crisis, especially among domestic consumers, has been a part of city life for at least a decade now.

Authorities blamed the crisis on increased consumption during winter with people using their gas stoves to generate heat to cope with cold.

Energy experts, however, traced the root of the problem in the government’s policy of limiting the gas supply to the domestic consumers and helping the private-sector LPG business expand.

Rana Akbar Haidary, director, Titas Gas, which is responsible for distributing gas in Dhaka and Myemensingh, said that they had a deficit of 400 mmcfd gas.

Around 18 per cent of the 1,800 mmcfd gas that Titas Gas receives is distributed among the domestic consumers, he said.

‘Titas had an additional supply of only 100 mmcfd gas after LNG was introduced,’ said Rana.

Condensates gather in pipe lines when gas pressure gets low, which might obstruct a smooth gas flow contributing further to the existing crisis, said Rana.

‘We almost starved for two days last week because we could not cook,’ said Hamida, a domestic help living in Badda.

Gas pressure gets so low in the neighbourhood of Hamida in morning hours that she needs to spend an hour to cook a pot of rice for a family of four.

Hamida lives in a shared house where four other low-income families live and they need to spend the whole morning and a part of the afternoon to get done with their cooking and boiling of water.

Hamida was late at her work on the days she tried to cook a full meal for her family.

Her husband cooks at a restaurant and her son and daughter work at a garment factory. None in Hamida’s family could spare long hours to cook meal.

‘We cannot afford dining outside. So we stay unfed or half-fed,’ said Hamida.

Hamida’s employer Nazia  Hasan dined at restaurants twice last week as the gas pressure was so low at her house that it could not be used for cooking.

Nazia, a private-sector employee, spent Tk 1,000 for dining out.

‘Who is going to compensate for the unplanned expenses?’ asked Nazia.

Let alone getting compensated, Nazia would have to pay her regular monthly gas bill of Tk 950 for using a double-burner stove at home, though she has been receiving a far less supply of gas than she paid for.

The average gas price was increased by 32.8 per cent six months ago with the government promising to ease the gas crisis by importing liquefied natural gas.

LNG was added to the national gas grid in August last year but it hardly helped reduce the gas crisis for domestic consumers.

There are 4.3 million gas consumers in the country, most of them domestic, about 70 per cent of whom live in Dhaka.

Petrobangla chairman Ruhul Amin said that they could not channel their full supply of LNG to the national grid due to shortage of pipe lines.

Petrobangla was supposed to receive 1,000 mmcfd LNG but its pipe lines, as of now, can carry a maximum of 700 mmcfd, he said.

‘We hope to overcome the problem after new pipe lines are commissioned in February,’ said Ruhul Amin.

Energy experts said that currently Bangladesh has a demand for 4,000 mmcfd gas.

The country produces 2,750 mmcfd domestically and together with the full supply of LNG it still falls short of meeting the demand, they said.

Consumers Association of Bangladesh energy adviser M Shamsul Alam said that the gas crisis faced by domestic consumers was intentionally created by the government.

‘The government’s policy is to help expand the private-sector LPG business,’ said Shamsul Alam.

The government cited expensive LNG import for justifying gas price hikes but it never had the intention to deliver a better gas service to households, he said.

The government’s decision not to provide new connection to households has still been in effect since 2010, he said.

‘The government’s priority has always been to serve the businesses,’ he said.

The Liquefied Petroleum Gas traders increased their prices by Tk 320 per bottle of LPG in two phases in the wake of the gas crisis this winter.

The first increase in the LPG price came in late November, just before winter began, and the second one in January, the coldest winter month.

Inhabitants in many parts of the capital were experiencing an acute fall in gas pressure at a time they need it most.

Bangladesh homes lack water and household heating systems. They do not have the means to dry clothes either, especially during winter when sunlight hours are limited and the sky is often covered with thick fog.

Residential areas bustling with middle-class families such as Muhammadpur, Mirpur, Hatirpool, Banashree and Basabo have faced acute gas crisis since December.

Industries based in Dhaka, however, do not have a complaint about gas supply.

‘We have an uninterrupted supply of gas,’ Mahmud Group general manager Sudhangshu Kumar Dutta told New Age.

He said that the industrial gas service had improved following the import of LNG and that they had no problem with the gas supply since last year.

The gas crisis has been persisting round the year for three years in Tantibazar,  Indrajit Kumer,  a resident said.

The pressure of gas is very low from 6:00am to 3:00pm every day.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net