Badrul Imam

Dr Badrul Imam, honorary professor at the Department of Geology in the University of Dhaka, talks about the reasons behind the ongoing gas crisis and the possible way out in an exclusive interview with Naznin Tithi of The Daily Star.

Bangladesh is going through the worst gas supply shortfall in recent history

In Bangladesh, natural gas has been predominant in the energy mix for decades.

ExxonMobil proposal should be considered with calculated speed.

Geoscientists have long been suggesting that significant gas resources still remain underground in the country, and the present gas demands may well be met through extracting our own gas.

"It is time for us to ask how much we have been able to recover from the energy crisis."

The energy sector was made LNG-dependent despite repeated warnings about it by experts.

All studies done by international and national agencies are in agreement that Bangladesh still has a significant amount of undiscovered gas under the ground.

The excuse that the present gas crisis and the consequent decline in power generation are solely the results of the Russia-Ukraine war is not entirely justified.

We have known for a while that dependence on the expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) would put Bangladesh under major financial stress.

The Bibiyana gas field in Bangladesh’s Habiganj district is the highest quantity gas producer in Bangladesh.

We have been seeing a downward trend in the supply of locally produced gas for a while now; yet there have been little efforts to explore potential gas reserves, even though Bangladesh is known to have a considerable amount of gas reserves still unexplored.

A declining trend of gas production from the local gas fields against an increasing gas demand has led Bangladesh to partially depend on importing high-priced liquefied natural gas (LNG).

A decreasing volume of annual natural gas production from the gas fields of Bangladesh means that the country is moving towards joining the net energy importers club sooner than one would have liked to think.

Bangladesh had its first gas field discovery in Sylhet in 1955. Since then, a total of 27 commercial gas fields have been found in the country with a cumulative original recoverable gas reserve of 28 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), according to Petrobangla official estimates.

Barapukuria underground coal mine in Dinajpur district is the only coal mine in Bangladesh. The coal deposit was discovered at shallow and mineable depth in 1985 by the Bangladesh Geological Survey.

Bangladesh now has a power generation capacity in excess of 21,000 MW.

Over the last 20 years, Bangladesh consumed about 13 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas.

He holds a piece of the rock sample and brings it near to a magnet bar. Instantly, the rock sample gets attached to the magnet and hangs on to it when the magnet bar is held up in the air.

The government’s plan, as reported in the media, to reduce the number of coal-based power plants and thus the amount of power to be generated using coal, brings relief to the concerns of environmentalists, scientists and the general public who have been campaigning against major coal use due to the danger it poses to the environment and human health.