A fire-damaged floating liquefied natural gas terminal in Bangladesh resumed operations on August 7, easing a nationwide gas shortage that had persisted for nearly a fortnight. Four days later, rough seas triggered a fresh emergency by preventing LNG tankers from berthing at the country’s second facility, drastically cutting deliveries to the national grid.
Bangladesh relies on two floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) with a combined daily capacity of 1.1 billion cubic feet. A July 21 blaze forced the Excelerate Energy terminal offline for almost two weeks of repairs before it restarted on August 7, briefly easing countrywide supply deficits as both units returned to service.
Rough weather on Monday then crippled output at the second terminal, operated by Summit Group. Unfavourable sea conditions prevented vessels from docking, dropping the facility’s daily output to roughly 250 million cubic feet.
Data from state energy firm Petrobangla show the two terminals are injecting about 530 million cubic feet daily into the grid — 280 million from Excelerate and 250 million from Summit — less than half their total capability. The deficit has placed severe strain on Bangladesh’s energy-dependent supply chains, with officials warning that prolonged disruptions will deepen losses across manufacturing, power generation and heavy industry.
Petrobangla officials said a technical fault prevents the Excelerate unit from reaching full capacity, while Summit’s terminal remains weather-bound. Excelerate now plans to halt operations again for 48 to 72 hours to carry out definitive repairs, extending the energy crunch for several more days. Energy authorities are attempting to maintain a floor of 505 million cubic feet in daily supply to prevent further systemic decline.
“We are attempting to normalise LNG supplies, but our immediate priority is ensuring current deliveries don’t drop any further,” Md Shoaib, director of operations and mines at Petrobangla, told Bonik Barta.
Excelerate’s floating facility operates two boilers, each with a daily capacity of roughly 300 million cubic feet. The July 21 blaze damaged one unit. While repairs are underway, commissioning it requires taking the active boiler offline for testing. The facility will inject no gas into the grid during the test window, with full recovery expected to take time. Petrobangla aims to schedule the shutdown on a public holiday to take advantage of lower demand.
Speaking at a seminar hosted by the Forum for Energy Reporters Bangladesh on Tuesday, Energy Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood acknowledged the systemic impact of the outage.
“A fire at one LNG terminal has thrown the entire country into crisis,” the minister told a question-and-answer session. “One boiler is damaged, and bringing the other online will take 72 hours. We are grappling with when to schedule that.”
The gas supply squeeze remains acute. Bangladesh requires about 3.8 billion cubic feet of gas daily, but combined domestic production and imports yield roughly 2.7 billion cubic feet under normal conditions. The twin terminal disruptions have squeezed grid injections to around 2.15 billion cubic feet, leaving a daily shortfall of 1.65 billion cubic feet. The deficit is battering power utilities, industrial output and residential supply, forcing more power cuts across the country as fuel starves power plants.
Data from the Bangladesh Power Development Board and Power Grid Bangladesh PLC show peak load-shedding has exceeded 3,000 megawatts for several consecutive days. Unmet demand reached 3,757 MW by 8:00 pm on Monday, following a peak deficit of 3,671 MW the previous day.
Bangladesh holds roughly 29,000 MW in total installed power generation capacity, but fuel shortages have left more than half of it idle. At the height of load-shedding on Tuesday, grid supply reached only about 12,500 MW against demand of 16,262 MW — an operational shortfall that persists for much of the day, driven primarily by the gas crisis.