‘Investment in the region is not increasing for lack of gas, despite various facilities including cheap labour and land’
The government plans to supply natural gas to the greater Faridpur region, despite projections that the natural resource will be depleted rapidly beginning in 2018.
According to a recent decision of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division, a 30-inch diameter 6.5 kilometre-long transmission pipeline will be built alongside the Padma Multipurpose Bridge, currently under construction, to facilitate the supply, officials said.
“We have decided to supply gas to greater Faridpur from the national grid,” Energy and Mineral Resources Division Secretary Abu Bakar Siddique, a native of Shariatpur district, told.
Greater Faridpur region – comprised of Rajbari, Gopalganj, Madaripur, Shariatpur and Faridpur – is likely to be one of the three new administrative divisions the government has decided to create in the next few months.
Siddique said the pipeline will be built with Asian Development Bank funds and that the Bangladesh Bridge Authority has already appointed a consultant to design the project.
Another pipeline will be built from Langalbandh in Narayanganj to Munshiganj’s Mawa which will connect to the Padma Bridge and the national grid. The pipeline will connect to Faridpur from Jajira Point on the Shariatpur end of the bridge.
Asked about the availability of gas, the secretary said: “There is a plan to dig new gas wells to extract more gas from different parts of the country.”
According to an estimate released at a workshop last month, the supply of gas will stand at one-third of the country’s demand of around 6,000 mmcfd in 2030.
The supply is estimated to drop to 2,000 mmcfd from the existing supply of around 2,600 mmcfd as production at the existing fields begins to deteriorate fast starting in 2018, when the Padma Bridge is expected to be completed.
“Gas is the main resource for industry and all types of industries depend on it,” Selina Mahbub, the president of the Faridpur Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Investment in the region is not increasing for lack of gas, despite various facilities including cheap labour and land,” Shariatpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Mirza A Syead said.
“As all industries are now dependent on electricity and furnace oil, the production cost comes to three times higher than in Dhaka or Chittagong,” he said. “The gas will help if an industrial zone is developed.”
Meanwhile, state-owned Sundarban Gas Distribution Company Ltd began its journey as a company of Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) in November, 2009 to develop the gas supply network in 16 districts of the south-west region, including Khulna and Barisal. But no gas has been supplied yet.