Bangladesh's natural gas demand projection for fiscal year ending June 2019 has been revised up 8.5% to 1.35 Tcf on rising LNG imports, state-owned Petrobangla's general manager for production and marketing Anwarul Islam said Wednesday.
The company's previous gas demand projection for fiscal 2018-19 was 1.24 Tcf.
The power sector will account for 657 Bcf, followed by industry (253 Bcf), manufacturing (152 Bcf), households (133 Bcf), fertilizer sector (98 Bcf), CNG filling stations (41 Bcf), commercial sector (9 Bcf) and others (2 Bcf).
Bangladesh's LNG imports are expected to hit 10 million mt/year by 2023, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. Its first LNG import facility started commercial operations in August, while the second FSRU, owned by Summit Group, is expected to come online by April 2019.
Bangladesh has also been trying to ramp up domestic natural gas production, but growth has remained stagnant at around 970 Bcf/year.
"We are carrying out a number of drilling programs in different onshore fields to increase overall natural gas output," A.K.M Ruhul Islam Chowdhury, managing director of Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Ltd., said.
