Summit LNG begins supplying gas to national grid
Summit LNG Terminal Co Ltd (SLNG) has begun supplying re-gasified liquefied natural gas to the national grid in a development that will go a long way to help Bangladesh fix its energy shortage.
SLNG, the country’s second LNG terminal, successfully completed the commissioning of its floating storage and re-gasification unit (FSRU) at 10pm on Monday, said Summit Group in a statement yesterday.
The unit has a capacity of supplying 500 million cubic feet of re-gasified LNG.
This is the second FSRU that will re-gasify and supply gas to Bangladesh, after Excelerate Energy of the US began supplying re-gasified LNG to Bangladesh from its terminal in Moheshkhali in August last year.
The second FSRU is 75 percent owned by Summit Corp, a unit of Summit Power International, and the remaining by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp.
The milestone was achieved about a month ahead of schedule saving resources for the government and will be a source of energy for many homes and industries that had been waiting for much-needed gas supply, the statement said.
Muhammed Aziz Khan, founder chairman of Summit Group, said investors in Bangladesh need to believe that energy, gas and power will be available to their industries.
“Our Summit LNG’s 500 mmcfd will help strengthen that trust,” he said in the statement.
Nasrul Hamid, state minister for energy and power, said the process of feeding the gas from the Summit FSRU to the national grid has started.
“This is a huge achievement for our country’s energy security. We are taking more initiatives, including onshore and offshore gas exploration, to help feed the expanding economy,” he told Reuters.
Summit LNG is moored six kilometers off the island of Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar.
Summit Power International has chartered the vessel from Excelerate Energy for 15 years.
The SLNG project is part of Summit Power International’s $1 billion investment programme by 2020 to deliver power and gas to Bangladesh.
Excelerate Energy’s FSRU has also capacity to send out 500mmcfd of gas per day.
The two FSRUs have a combined capacity of sending out 1,000mmcfd of gas to the national network per day, but the capacity cannot be utilised as the pipeline from Moheshkhali to Anwara upazila in Chattogram is not ready yet.
The two FSRUs are supplying a total of 600mmcfd of re-gasified gas to the network at the moment, said Md Quamruzzaman, managing director of Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Limited.
The import of LNG is part of the government’s efforts to eliminate gas shortages and power outages and unlock the potential of the economy.
The import of 1,000mmcfd gas could help produce almost 5,000 megawatts of electricity, which is about half of what the country produces today.
Petrobangla estimates that the contribution of 1,000mmcfd gas to the economy would be equivalent to Tk 276,000 crore (about $34 billion). The gas would cost $3 billion a year and might ease the decades-long gas crisis.
