Amid gas crisis, now looming load-shedding!

With parts of the country, especially the capital and Chittagong, reeling from a gas crisis that is highly likely prevail till March, the government has now warned of a potential load shedding in many areas.

In a Facebook post on Saturday afternoon, the Ministry of Power Energy and Mineral Resources made the caution. 

“The production of electricity has dropped due to the disrupted supply of the LNG following technical glitches at an FRSU in Moheshkhali (Cox’s Bazar). The ministry is trying hard to fix the issue at the earliest by giving it the utmost importance,” the post reads.

“In such a situation, many areas of the country may suffer power outage for a short time,” the ministry said, apologizing to the consumers for the inconvenience. 

On Saturday, the country faced up to 700MW of load-shedding till evening, according to the data of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh.

On Friday, the Energy and Mineral Resources Division expressed regrets for the inconvenience in Chattagram and elsewhere in the country due to the suspension of the LNG supply from FSRU in Maheshkhali following a technical fault there.

This has led to a fall in the pressure of the gas supply and consumers have been experiencing a gas crisis, it said.

Prior to that, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid on January 16 said the gas crisis across Bangladesh would be resolved by March.

According to sources, the gas crisis is affecting all sorts of consumers, including industries, power plants, and commercial and household users, leading to cuts in industrial throughput and public suffering.

Petrobangla said some 36 gas-fired plants remained shut, as the state entity could supply around 744mmcfd natural gas to the plants against their demand for 2,240mmcfd as of 17 January.

The gas supply situation in power plants has turned worse after the technical glitch at the FSRUs, a  Petrobangla official told an English daily.