Bangladesh may accept somewhat higher costs to secure a floating LNG terminal from China quickly as the government seeks to tackle the country’s growing gas and electricity shortages, Prime Minister’s Information and Broadcasting Adviser Dr Zahed Ur Rahman said.
“The most important issue for the government now is to get an FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit) quickly to address the gas and power crisis,” he told a press conference on progress in various government activities on Tuesday (8 September).
He said Bangladesh could not currently increase LNG imports at will because the country lacked sufficient regasification capacity to convert imported LNG into gas.
The two existing floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) have a combined capacity of around 1.1 billion cubic feet of gas per day, he said.
“Even if we want to bring in a large amount of LNG, we do not have the capacity to regasify all of it. Therefore, it is essential to bring in more FSRUs for LNG regasification,” the adviser said.
He said the government had placed an urgent order with China for an FSRU, which was expected to be delivered in around 18 months.
However, he stressed that securing the FSRU alone would not be enough, as the necessary infrastructure, including transmission pipelines, would also have to be developed to supply gas from the terminal.
“Our crisis is the immediate concern. Getting this urgently has now become more important than the overall process,” he said.
Asked about the possibility of higher costs for procuring the FSRU from China, Zahed said some additional expenditure could be accepted because of the need for a faster solution.
“Rather than calculating a specific percentage of additional costs, what is more important now is addressing the country’s economic crisis,” he said.
The adviser warned that prolonged gas and electricity shortages could cause significant damage to the economy, while the losses to state resources caused by power outages could be “unimaginably high”.
He cited captive power plants as an example, saying that when gas supplies are unavailable, industrial units are forced to generate electricity using oil.
This can increase production costs several-fold and undermine the competitiveness of the affected businesses, he said.
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11 Septembertember, 2026 
