A sudden shutdown at a major floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Maheshkhali has sparked a widespread gas crisis across Bangladesh, leaving urban households unable to cook, stranding motorists in endless fuel queues, and threatening to paralyse power plants and industrial output.
The sharp crunch unfolded after Summit’s floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) was forced offline for emergency maintenance on Wednesday morning, wiping out a substantial portion of imported gas feeding the national grid.
By Thursday, daily supply to the grid had plunged by at least 400 million cubic feet below normal levels, plunging millions into daily chaos.
Across the capital, families woke up to cold stoves and empty pipelines.
Residents in Dhaka neighbourhoods including Badda, Mirpur, Azimpur, Mohammadpur, and Dhanmondi reported either critically low pressure or no gas supply whatsoever.
In Badda, resident Nazmul Islam Rizwan was unable to prepare breakfast and was forced to buy takeaway food, whilst Mirpur resident Farhad Hossain found his domestic supply cut off entirely.
As kitchen burners flickered out, households across the city scrambled to purchase induction cookers to cope with the disruption.
The emergency offline period hit the transport sector with equal severity.
Long, chaotic queues of motor vehicles snaked around compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations across Dhaka, Chattogram, and adjacent districts.
Several stations were forced to suspend operations outright as pipeline pressure dropped below operational thresholds, whilst frustrated motorists endured hours of waiting.
According to data from Petrobangla, national grid supply stood at 2.54 billion cubic feet at 8:00 am on Wednesday, comprising 1.566 billion cubic feet from domestic fields and 974 million cubic feet from imported LNG.
However, as Summit’s facility ceased operations, total daily supply plummeted to 2.11 billion cubic feet by 2:00pm, remaining critically depressed through Thursday.
Whilst domestic gas output remained steady, LNG-derived supply collapsed from its normal level of roughly 1 billion cubic feet down to just 540 million cubic feet, supplied entirely through the nation’s second terminal operated by US firm Excelerate.
The breakdown highlights Bangladesh’s extreme vulnerability to offshore import infrastructure.
Operating at a daily capacity of 500 million cubic feet alongside Excelerate’s 600-million-cubic-foot unit, Summit’s terminal accounts for roughly half of the country’s regasified LNG capacity.
The current outage compounds a severe pre-existing deficit; against official daily demand of 3.8 billion cubic feet, and industry estimates of actual demand exceeding 5 billion cubic feet, the grid typically relies on just 2.5 to 2.6 billion cubic feet.
Petrobangla confirmed that Summit’s terminal will remain offline until 4:00pm on Saturday, raising fears of severe industrial disruption despite the brief weekend reprieve.
