LPG supply to Sylhet nosedives

Bottling plant compelled to run only 6-7 days a month

18 October 2009, 17:00 PM

Iqbal Siddiquee, Sylhet

The authorities of LP Gas Ltd, one of the two bottling plants of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), have been compelled to run the plant for only 6-7 days a month, due to drastic fall in supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), from Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Limited (RPGCL), another sate-run company. The supply was 400 metric tonnes (MT) in July but nose-dived to 200 MT in August and only150 MT in September, sources said. The fall in LPG supply came at a time when its demand in the market in Sylhet as well as in other parts of the country has gone up in recent months, BPC sources said. The plant now bottles only 12,000 to 16,000 cylinders of LPG per month in place of 30,000 to 40,000 a month previousely. The supply fell to 150 to 200 MT of LPG in place of 500 to 550 MT per month. The short supply began in July this year, sources informed. The national demand for LPG is about one lakh MT, 60 per cent of which is met by private companies like Total, Basundhara, Jamuna and Cleanheat and all of them import LPG. Of the BPC run two bottling plants one in Chittagong with annual bottling capacity of 15,000 MT and the other in Sylhet with capacity of 8,000 MT the later one only uses locally extracted gas. The private companies supply 12 kg cylindered gas at Tk 800 to 900 while BPC supplies 12.5 Kg cylinder for Tk 700 to 750. However, when supply falls down, the price goes up to Tk 800 to 850. Both the quality and quantity of the Natural Gas liquid (NGL), supplied by Sylhet Gas Fields Limited (SGFL), has fallen in recent months, causing great loss for state run companies such as RPGCL has been compelled to flare out the raw NGL worth about Tk 10 lakh everyday. However, denying their responsibility, officials of RPCGL and SGFL have been blaming each other for the present crisis. A high level technical probe into the matter can fix up the responsibility, a number of officials observed. RPGCL produces LPG at two of its fractionation plants by processing NGL supplied by SGFL. But due to poor supply of NGL, RPGCL was compelled to keep one of its plants shut, said an official. RPGCL supplies LPG to the LP Gas Limited for bottling before supplying through the three marketing companies of BPC. An official of RPGCL, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed last week that SGFL has been supplying low quality NGL and this is why they are facing difficulties in processing the same. “We are now compelled to flare out the huge quantity of NGL having high pressure gas (Ethane), which is not usable,” he added. SGFL processes the raw gas extracted from Kailashtila Gas Field site at its Molecular Sieve Turbo Expander plant (MSTE) for NGL. In-charge of the MSTE plant Harun Rashid Molla declined to pass any comment about the allegations raised by RPGCL. However, officials requesting anonymity said there might have problems in RPGCL plant. They admitted receiving complaints from RPGCL about the fall in quality and quantity of NGL over the last few months. Asked, RPGCL plant in-charge Engineer Nurullah said he would not make any comment on the issue. President of the Sylhet Division Petroleum Dealers and Agents Association Mohsinur Rashid Chowdhury told the Daily Star that the LPG demand in Sylhet division is 10,000 to 12,000 MT per year. The ever-increasing demand would go up further as the government had already stopped new gas connections for domestic use and small enterprises recently, he added. Because of bickering in RPGCL and SGFL, he said, BPC's supply went down drastically in recent months.