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Petrobangla in a hurry to set up LNG terminal

Pre-bid meet today

Sharier Khan
After taking nearly a year in picking four bidders to participate in a tender for setting up a floating terminal in Maheshkhali for importing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to ease the country's gas crisis, the Petrobangla is pressing them to submit their request for proposals (RFP) within just 45 days.
Sources said the Petrobangla is hurrying because it feels that if the contract to set up the terminal is not signed by March, it would not be completed within the tenure of the Awami League -led government. Therefore the government would not get the political mileage from it.
But a couple of the selected bidders already sought extension of deadline for submitting their RFP as it requires them to get equipment providers' delivery deadline confirmation as well as financial arrangements. They said the Petrobangla fixed the RFP deadline on December 23, when most of the companies were on holidays and therefore they lost valuable time to prepare their RFP The Petrobangla has not responded to their requests.
The government aims at importing LNG containers from Qatar — 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) -- which is equivalent to the current gas supply deficit of the country.
The containers will be unloaded at an LNG terminal in Maheshkhali from where the gas will be transmitted to the national grid in Chittagong through an 80-kilometre pipeline. If imple-mented, it will give Bangladesh energy sector an alternative solution.
As part of the tender, the Petrobangla today sits with
four bidders to discuss various issues. It will take the bidders to Maheshkhali to show them the project site.
The government floated the tender for setting up the LNG terminal in 2010 and in January last year, 10 compa-nies submitted prequalification documents. The tender could not proceed properly due to wrong selection of project consultant under the World Bank's finance. The matter was resolved in July last year by changing the consultant.
Back then, Petrobangla Chairman Hussain Monsur had told The Daily Star that he expected to award the
contract in December last year. But now, the Petrobangla is aiming at March to have the terminal installed in the next 18 months.
The four companies which were prequalified for the tender are: Golar LNG Energy Management of Singapore, joint venture of Astra Oil (Netherlands) and Excelerate (USA), Samsung of South Korea and Hiranandi Pvt Co of India with Hoegth LNG, Norway.
Bangladesh sent a team twice to Qatar to make a primary agreement on LNG supply at a concessional rate. Qatar has assured
Bangladesh of the supply, but declined to give any concession. It has also told Bangladesh that it would sign an agreement when Bangladesh's infrastructure is ready to take the LNG.
The floating terminal is likely to cost around $300 million, which has to be arranged by the selected bidder itself.
Although the cost of imported LNG would be three to four times that of local gas, the government has taken the initiative to ensure energy security of the country. Mixing of the imported LNG with local gas would help reduce the total cost, sources said.