India’s top gas importer Petronet LNG, which submitted a nearly $1 billion investment proposal last year, will not bid for Bangladesh’s on-shore LNG terminal
It instead wants a government-to-government deal, Reuters reported citing Petronet Managing Director Prabhat Singh.
In July 2018, Petronet submitted a proposal to set up an onshore terminal at an investment of nearly $1 billion after signing a MoU with PetroBangla during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s New Delhi visit in December 2017.
The Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Co last week requested interest from potential developers for regasification terminal at Cox’s Bazar’s Matarbari.
The expression of interest is for the design, engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of terminal to handle 7.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG, including receiving, unloading, storage and re-gasification facilities.
The project is on a build-own-operate basis for 20 years, with ownership then transferred to the Bangladeshi government or a company nominated by the government at no cost.
Bangladesh has already set up its first LNG terminal at Maheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar and a floating storage and regasification unit or FSRU carried the first shipment of 133,000 cubic metres of LNG from Qatar in April.
Bangladesh is suffering a gas crisis as the government has been forced to limit the supply despite growing demand at industries and households due to lack of extraction from the gas fields.
The work to set up several floating and land-based LNG terminals in Maheshkhali, Khulna and Patuakhali’s Payra is under way.