The government has taken a move to increase the CNG filling station
owners’ margin by Tk 2 for selling a cubic metre of compressed natural
gas to satisfy them at the fag end of its tenure, officials said.
A committee headed by the energy division additional secretary Md Golam
Mostofa on Tuesday decided to suggest the government to increase the CNG
businessmen’s margin to Tk 9 from Tk 7 per cubic metre of compressed
natural gas, CNG Filling Station Owners Association president Zakir
Hossain Nayan told New Age.
The committee would also ask the government to provide gas connections to 54 new CNG filling stations, he said.
On July 6, 2013, the then prime minister’s energy adviser Tawfiq-E-Elahi
Chowdhury asked the energy division to form a committee to scrutinise a
proposal of the CNG station owners for ‘rationalising’ the margin of
the sales of CNG with the increased maintenance cost of filling stations
due to increased power price and bank interest rate.
Tawfiq initiated the move when the CNG station owners went on an
indefinite strike to pressing for their including the increase of the
margin and get gas connections to new CNG filling stations.
For increasing the margin, the energy division committee also decided to
suggest the government to increase the retail price of CNG or cutting
the amount from the government’s share on supplied gas to the CNG
stations, the officials said.
A Petrobangla official, however, said that the issue of increasing the
sales margin would be settled by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory
Commission, the country’s watch-dog body for energy sector.
The other issue of providing new gas connections to 54 CNG filling
stations would be settled by a high-powered committee, they said.
On September 19, 2011, the energy commission set the retail price of CNG
at Tk 30 per cubic metre, increasing the price by Tk 5 per cubic metre.
The commission also increased the price of gas supplied to CNG filling station to Tk 23 from Tk 18 per cubic metre.
The state-run Petrobangla supplies about 115 million cubic feet or 3.26
million cubic metre of natural gas a day to 588 CNG filling stations
across the country. (source)