Bangladesh To Start Replacing Oil Product Imports With LNG

Bangladesh will begin substituting part of its oil product imports with LNG next year, as it aims to use more gas in power generation to replace oil-fired plants, Sayed Mohammad Mozammel Haque, director for Operations and Planning at Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), told S&P Global Platts on Wednesday.

Bangladesh’s demand for LNG is expected to rise to 9 million mt annually by 2022, Platts Analytics has estimated, but it’s not yet clear how much oil imports would be gradually replaced with LNG, according to Haque.

Last month, Bangladesh approved a plan by India’s Reliance Power to build a 718-MW plant that would be using 110,000 Mcf/d of regasified imported LNG. Local firm North West Power Generation Company is expected to launch another power plant that would run on LNG in June 2019.

Markets for LNG in Asia are expected to expand in the long term, with growing demand in China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, and new upcoming markets in Vietnam, Philippines, and Bangladesh, the EIA said in an analysis in March this year, in which it assessed current demand as “softened”.

According to a Wood Mackenzie report from this month, last year Asia accounted for around 70 percent of global LNG imports, but only about 20 percent of Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) trade. “Asia is not only the biggest, but it also is the fastest growing region for LNG,” WoodMac said. “In Q1 2017 there were 65 companies, who have announced plans to import LNG across the region. Many of these emerging buyers will be looking to FSRUs as a cheaper and faster way to import LNG,” according to the consultancy.

The Woodlands, Texas-based Excelerate Energy said in December last year that it had completed the required geotechnical and geophysical studies for the implementation of the Moheshkhali Floating LNG terminal in Bangladesh, expected to receive first LNG in 2018.

Bangladesh, for its part, tapped earlier this month Swiss commodity merchant AOT Energy to help it get LNG supplies.