Rough sea conditions due to active monsoon disrupted unloading of imported liquefied natural gas at both the floating storage and regasification units in the Bay of Bengal, bringing the supply down to below 200 mmcfd.
The floating storage and regasification units, FSRUs in short, have the capacity to supply 1,100 mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) of LNG, which is blended with locally extracted natural gas to supply through the national grid.
LNG accounts for about a fourth of gas consumed in the country. With the fall in the LNG supply, the overall gas supply dropped to close to 2,000 mmcfd, turning the country鈥檚 energy crisis from bad to worse.
Bangladesh鈥檚 gas demand is about 4,000 mmcfd. But during normal times the gas supply hovers around 2,600 mmcfd. On June 16, the supply was over 2,800 mmcfd with over 900 mmcfd of LNG supply
鈥楾wo new LNG cargoes are waiting with fresh supplies,鈥� said Rafiqul Islam, director, operations, Petrobangla.
After the weather was cleared, he said, beginning of the unloading of the cargoes might take six to seven hours.
This is the second time in less than three weeks that bad sea conditions disrupted LNG unloading, causing industrial productions to suffer seriously.
The last disruption occurred between the end of May and early June when a low pressure moved onto land from the Bay of Bengal, wreaking havoc across vast swathes of land in the country and adjacent areas in India for days.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department asked all four maritime ports to keep hoisting Signal Three due to active monsoon and thunder clouds occurring over the north Bay of Bengal and adjoining coastal areas.
The situation is likely to continue for the three days starting at 10:00am on June 18, according to the BMD which has also warned that heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely to occur over most of Bangladesh during the period.
A landslide warning remained in effect for the forecast period in five districts鈥擟hattogram, Bandarban, Rangamati, Khagrachari and Cox鈥檚 Bazar districts.聽聽聽
In the 24 hours until 6:00pm Wednesday, Bangladesh鈥檚 highest maximum rainfall of 163mm was recorded in Khepupara in Patuakhali. Dhaka recorded 13mm of rainfall during that time.聽
The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre in a bulletin on Wednesday said that rivers in eastern, south-eastern and north-eastern regions might rapidly swell due to heavy to very heavy rainfall.
The Feni River and the Sarigowain in Sylhet, Jadukata in Sunamganj and Someswari in Netrakona are likely to flow at their danger levels, causing brief flooding of low-lying areas, according to the FFWC. 聽
