The government has decided not to give new gas connections to households to maximise potential use of gas amid severe crisis and liquid petroleum gas will be promoted as an alternative to cooking fuel.
The energy secretary, Mohammad Mesbah Uddin, announced the decision as he was answering the questions of journalists at a press conference on Petrobangla's achievements and roadmap held at Petrocentre on Tuesday.
'We mainly want to reduce gas supply through pipeline. People will use LPG [liquid petroleum gas] for cooking,' Mesbah said.
The prime minister's energy adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, the state minister of power, energy and mineral resources, Mohammad Enamul Huq, and the Petrobangla chairman, Hossain Monsur, attended the conference.
Amid severe gas crisis, the government has stopped giving new gas connections to the industries, commercial and household consumers from October 2009.
Mesbah said that Petrobangla was set to increase LPG production. In addition, the government was planning to go for LPG bottling projects under public-private partnership, he said adding that the country had produced 20,000 tonnes of LPG in 2010.
Answering a question whether it will create discriminations between household gas consumers as gas supplied through pipeline is cheaper than LPG, Mesbah said that the government would reduce
the price gap between LPG and pipeline gas to the households.
The government will increase the price of gas supplied through pipeline and reduce the price of LPG.
Petrobangla's distribution subsidiaries now supply 224 million cubic feet of gas a day to about 16 lakh households for cooking to meet a demand for 275 million cubic feet.
Hossain Monsur said that the country was running short of 500 million cubic feet of gas a day.
He said that Petrobangla with its subsidiaries and international oil companies would be able to supply 3000 million cubic feet of gas a day to the national grid by 2012.
'We will be able to supply gas according to the demand by 2012. Petrobangla by its oil and gas exploration subsidiary Bapex has planned to drill at least 34 exploration, development and work-over wells in different gas fields by 2013', he said.
He also said that Petrobangla has repaired (work-over) nine gas wells in different fields and added 284 million cubic feet of natural gas a day to the national grid from January 2008 to December 2010.
Source: New Age
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