Bangladesh’s domestic gas reserves are declining faster than new drilling can replace lost output, according to Petrobangla data, officials and energy experts.
Production from ageing fields has fallen nearly 16 per cent in three years, while exploration efforts have failed to keep pace, prompting experts to call for a major expansion of drilling.
Domestic gas output dropped from an average of 2,290 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) in early 2022 to 2,242 mmcfd in 2023, 2,054 mmcfd in 2024 and 1,935 mmcfd in 2025 — a loss of around 361 mmcfd.
The sharpest declines came from major fields including Bibiyana, Jalalabad, Titas and Habiganj, deepening Bangladesh’s reliance on imported liquefied natural gas.
The recent shutdown of one of the country’s two Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs), which removed around 450 mmcfd from the national grid, exposed rather than caused the crisis.
Even before the disruption, Bangladesh had a structural gas deficit of around 1,200 mmcfd, with demand of about 3,800 mmcfd against normal supply of 2,600 mmcfd. The FSRU outage cut supply to around 2,150 mmcfd, affecting households, industries and power plants.
Md Rafiqul Islam, director of Operations and Mines at Petrobangla, said repairs to the fire-damaged FSRU were almost complete, though the restart date had not been announced.
“The longer-term challenge is the depletion of our ageing gas fields,” he told TIMES of Bangladesh.
“Our reserves have been producing for a long time. Natural resources do not last forever. As reserves decline, production also falls.”
Field data show depletion has spread across nearly all major producing assets between fiscal year 2021-22 and FY25. Jalalabad’s output fell from 211.4 mmcfd to 146.2 mmcfd, Bibiyana’s from 1,162.8 mmcfd to 973.7 mmcfd, Habiganj’s from 156 mmcfd to 108.1 mmcfd and Titas’s from 403.9 mmcfd to 346.7 mmcfd.
Petrobangla data also show domestic production declined from around 2,047 mmcfd in January 2024 to 1,820 mmcfd in April 2025. Reservoir depletion reduced output by about 375 mmcfd between FY20 and FY24.
In parliament in April, Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Adviser Iqbal Hassan Mahmood said Bangladesh had 7.63 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of recoverable gas reserves remaining as of 1 January after extracting 22.11 Tcf from total recoverable reserves of 29.74 Tcf.
At the current production rate of around 1,700 mmcfd, the remaining reserves would last about 12 years unless new fields were discovered, he said.
Petrobangla is drilling eight new wells, with Bapex handling five and contractors developing the remaining three. The government also plans to establish a land-based LNG terminal.
Energy experts, however, say the programme is too small to reverse the decline.
Geologist and energy expert Badrul Imam said mature fields would continue to lose output unless Bangladesh significantly expanded exploration.
“Unless new gas fields are discovered, output from existing fields will continue to fall,” he said.
Imam said Bangladesh’s main constraint was not geological potential but the slow pace of exploration.
“We are not drilling wells at the rate required. Eight wells are negligible for a country like Bangladesh. We should be implementing a programme to drill at least 20 to 30 wells,” he said.
He blamed limited drilling capacity, shortages of rigs and skilled personnel, and lengthy approval, tendering, land acquisition and procurement processes for the slow progress.
The government has sought to diversify supplies through a 13-year LNG import agreement with a US supplier, talks with Malaysia and offshore exploration bids.
Experts said these measures would not quickly close the supply gap. New discoveries in the Bay of Bengal would require years of appraisal, field development and infrastructure construction, while additional LNG imports would need more regasification capacity and expose Bangladesh to global price volatility.
They warned that the widening gap between ageing field depletion and new reserve development must be addressed urgently to prevent a larger gas crisis in the coming years.
