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A severe energy crisis has been affecting every aspect of life, commerce and business as the country passes yet another year of bad energy planning.

While industries are left with no choices but to reduce production by half or even more due to long hours of power cuts, compounded by a severe shortage of gas, power plants sat idle in dozens, CNG refueling stations saw long lines of vehicles and many households needed to wait until midnight to cook meals.

The crisis is a grim reminder of the interim government’s failure to import enough energy as it continues to carry the energy sector debt burden left behind by the past Awami League regime amid the dollar crisis.

On April 27, the latest daily gas report released by Petrobangla showed that the overall gas supply stood at 2,692.2mmcfd against the demand of 4,000mmcfd. The gas supply was 10 per cent less compared with the same day a year before.

An analysis of daily Petrobangla reports of the days in comparison revealed that gas production from domestic wells fell by 170.9mmcfd amid reduced liquefied natural gas imports of 159mmcfd.

‘We are witnessing the worst energy crisis ever,’ said Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association vice president Saleudh Zaman.

About 19 per cent of about 1,800 textile mills are running at their half or 40 per cent capacity navigating seven to nine hours of power cuts daily, he said.

Industries could not use their alternative captive power generation because of gas supply shortage. Many industries need gas as raw materials.

‘Many factories might default on paying workers’ wages,’ he said.

Gas accounts for 54 per cent of Bangladesh’s total energy supply. The other energy sources are oil, coal and biomass. Power sector is the biggest gas consumer accounting for 43 per cent of the overall consumption. Captive power consumes 17 per cent of gas.

Industries use 18 per cent of supplied gas while households use 11 per cent and CNG and fertilizer production use 5 per cent each.

On April 27, gas supply met 42 per cent of power sector demand and only 38 per cent of fertilizer sector demand.

Consumers are particularly angered by the gas crisis because their gas bill soared in the past few years without any improvement in its supply. Industries saw gas price increase by more than two and a half times since 2023.

Over the past week, the crowd of vehicles at CNG refueling stations in the capital and many other districts got thicker, signaling a worsening turn in the energy crisis.

The gas pressure, supposed to be 15psi, dropped to between zero and 2psi in two-thirds of CNG refueling stations, said Farhan Noor, general secretary of the Bangladesh CNG Filling Station and Conversion Workshop Owners Association, a platform of 539 refueling stations.

The refueling stations never received the promised pressure and faced gas rationing since 2010.

Though the stations are supposed to get gas 21 hours a day, the supply reaches operable levels around midnight.

‘The problem is that you cannot find customers in the wee hours,’ said Farhan.

Low gas pressure means increased energy cost for the refueling stations which need to use three to five times more electricity to run their compressors to get a certain amount of output, he explained.

Farhan said that he was under pressure from his colleagues to call a nationwide strike as their margin dropped over the years amid inflation, wage hike, and the devaluation of taka.

‘I lost a long-time client today as I was two hours late to pick him up due to long queues at gas refueling stations,’ said Abdul Malek, a rent-a-car owner in Tangail.

The drop in the gas supply in CNG refueling stations mirrored lives in households relying on piped gas. Many households have to wait until midnight to start cooking.

‘Cooking at midnight after working a whole day is simply inhuman,’ said Hamida Banu, a housewife in the capital’s Badda area.

Most households using piped gas pay a fixed monthly price though they never get what they pay for. Households in many areas in Dhaka reported acute low gas pressure in most parts of the day.

The shortage of gas is felt more than any other energy shortage as public infrastructures are mostly gas-based. Coal and furnace oil are mostly used in industries and power production.   

Petrobangla director Rafiqul Islam said that the crisis was unlikely to improve until June when the state-owned oil company is planning to increase LNG import.

‘Local gas production fall and increased power demand are the main drivers of the crisis,’ he said.

This summer has been rather less warm as the warmest month of the year, April, is about to end with maximum day temperatures remaining around 37C. Last April saw consecutive days spread over weeks with temperatures exceeding 40C over vast swathes of land.

Still, frequent load shedding occurred, even in Dhaka.

At 1:00am on April 28, 218MW of load shedding was recorded when the power demand rose to 15,240MW. Bangladesh’s current installed power generation capacity is over 27,500MW with gas accounting for nearly half of the capacity. Coal and oil account for 20 per cent of the capacity each.

Energy expert Ijaz Hossain advised increasing gas supply to industries even if it meant increasing load shedding. He called for prioritizing some industries to supply 200mmcfd of extra gas, which could go a long way in saving the country’s economy.

‘The crisis reflected shortcomings of energy planning,’ he said, ‘I don’t understand what the government is trying to achieve by not fully using its LNG import capacity.’

Bangladesh’s full LNG import capacity is 1,100mmcfd.

Oil-based power plants could be used more to mitigate power outages, he suggested.

‘There is no easy solution. We are facing a critical situation. Further failure in taking the right action could lead everything to collapse,’ said Ijaz.