The country is experiencing a deficit of up to 1,500 megawatts of power supply during current summer and there is a daily deficit of 500 million cubic feet of gas, state minister for energy and power Enamul Haq told parliament on Sunday.
The demand for power in summer is around 6,000 megawatts while power plants can generate four to five thousand megawatts, he said in response to a question from Shahriyar Alam.
The minister told Moshtaq Ahmed Ruhi that the daily demand for gas was more than 2,500 million cubic feet while the highest 2,020 million cubic feet of gas could be supplied.
He said the reserve of recoverable gas in 23 gas fields was 10.8 trillion cubic feet, adding that the government was working on plans to explore new fields and also to increase production from the existing fields with a target of 2,800 million cubic feet a day by 2015.
Besides, Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration Company was working on 2D and 3D seismic survey for exploration of new fields. In this context, he referred to the deals signed recently with ConocoPhillips for deep sea exploration.
To a question from Apu Ukil, the state minister said at present gas was being supplied to 29 districts through pipeline.
He said the government has taken 10 projects to increase the capacity of petroleum storage. After implementation of the projects, the storage capacity would increase by more than three lakh tonnes.
Enamul Huq also said the amount of power bill arrears with different government and private organisations stood at Taka 126 crore.
The minister said 39 deals had been signed by government agencies and private companies to construct 41 power plants to produce 4,505 megawatts of power.
Source : New Age
