Excelerate LNG cargo due Sunday, but gas supply recovery may take longer

A new LNG cargo for Excelerate Energy’s floating terminal in Moheshkhali is due on Sunday, but gas supplies are unlikely to recover significantly before then.

Petrobangla Director (Production Sharing Contract) Md Shoyeb told bdnews24.com on Thursday that the next cargo for Excelerate’s terminal was due on Sunday.

Gas supplies will not resume at full capacity immediately after the cargo arrives, industry officials said, as the LNG must first be unloaded and converted into gas.

Meanwhile, an LNG cargo for Summit’s terminal arrived on Thursday, increasing its stocks. But Petrobangla officials said the terminal was already supplying about 571 million cubic feet of gas a day at its maximum capacity, leaving little scope to increase supplies.

Excelerate’s terminal ran out of usable LNG after Wednesday afternoon, halting supplies to the national grid. Summit’s other terminal continued supplying gas.

At 6pm Thursday, LNG supplied 570 million cubic feet of gas to the grid, while domestic fields supplied 1.63 billion cubic feet, taking total supply to 2.2 billion cubic feet.

With daily demand at about 3.8 billion cubic feet, only 57.8 percent of demand was met, leaving a shortfall of 1.6 billion cubic feet. The two floating LNG terminals have a combined capacity of about 1.1 billion cubic feet a day, meaning Thursday’s LNG supply was around 52 percent of their potential.

Excelerate’s terminal has faced repeated disruptions since a fire on Jul 21 damaged electrical cables and cut about 450 million cubic feet of daily gas supply. 

It partially resumed operations on Aug 6 after more than two weeks, but supplies have fluctuated because of technical problems and limited cargo availability.

Petrobangla data showed average LNG supply fell by about 6 percent in the 24 hours to Aug 20, from 626.6 million to 589 million cubic feet. Combined domestic and LNG supply fell by 39.4 million cubic feet to 2.22 billion cubic feet.

Power plants received 933.4 million cubic feet against demand of 2.525 billion cubic feet, meeting only about 37 percent of their requirement.

At 5pm Thursday, electricity demand was 15,679MW against 14,382MW supplied, leaving 1,297MW of load-shedding. Generation stood at 14,800MW, up from 14,176MW a day earlier. Gas-fired generation fell by 112MW, while coal-fired generation rose by 722MW, accounting for most of the increase.