Chittagong Correspondent:
Three ships carrying about 200,000 tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) have arrived at the Chittagong port in five days. One of these ships has already reached Bangladeshi waters, while the other two are scheduled to arrive by Wednesday. The total amount of LNG in the three ships is about 193,000 tons.
The Chittagong Port Authority said that the tanker named ‘HL Puffin’ carrying 61,997 tons of LNG from Australia reached the Kutubdia coast on Thursday. In addition, two more ships named ‘New Brave’ carrying 61,000 tons of LNG from Indonesia and ‘Celsius Galapagos’ carrying about 70,000 tons of LNG from the United States will arrive at the port by Wednesday.
Md. Nurul Alam, Senior Deputy General Manager of Uni Global Business Limited, the local shipping agent of the two ships, said that the two tankers are likely to arrive on time as per the scheduled schedule.
About 70 percent of the LNG imported into Bangladesh comes from Qatar.
However, the ongoing war situation in the Middle East has created some uncertainty in this supply. Although two LNG tankers were supposed to arrive from Qatar in the middle of this month, they did not arrive. One of them is still stuck at Ras Laffan port loaded with LNG.
State-owned company Petrobangla imports LNG. Officials of the company said that efforts are being made to procure LNG from alternative sources amid the unrest in the Middle East. They also expressed hope that there will be no major supply crisis for the time being despite the situation surrounding the Strait of Hormuz.