State Minister for Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has revealed that Bangladesh is currently facing a gas shortfall of almost 1,000 million cubic feet per day compared to the national demand.

The country is extracting about 2,050 million cubic feet of gas daily, whereas the demand stands at around 4,000 million cubic feet per day, he told parliament on Sunday.

Around 800-900 million cubic feet of imported LNG, along with domestically produced gas, are being channelled into the national grid to reduce the deficit, according to Hamid.

To address the ongoing and future gas demand, the state minister said the government has initiated drilling activities for 48 different wells, aiming to complete them by 2025.

The initiative is expected to contribute an average of 618 million cubic feet of gas daily to the national grid.

So far, drilling and workover activities for 10 wells have been finalised, enhancing the daily production by 118 million cubic feet, with an additional 33 million cubic feet of gas being supplied to the national grid, according to Hamid.

The state minister highlighted a recent upgrade in one of the two floating LNG terminals, which has increased its capacity by 100 million cubic feet per day. This has raised the total LNG supply capacity to 1,100 million cubic feet per day.

Hamid also provided optimistic projections for gas supply in Bangladesh, indicating an expected increase to 4,608 million cubic feet per day by the fiscal year 2030-31 and 5,249 million cubic feet per day by 2040-41.

Addressing a question from ruling party MP M Abdul Latif, the state minister revealed that the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) imports half of its refined fuel oil through Government-to-Government (G2G) agreements and the other half via international open tenders.

Currently, BPC procures refined fuel oil on a G2G basis from state-owned companies in six countries: India, China, Indonesia, Thailand, the UAE, and Malaysia.

In response to an query from independent MP Saiful Islam on the daily import of 2,656 megawatts of electricity from India, Hamid noted that Bangladesh houses 141 thermal power plants with a combined capacity of 23,159 megawatts, of which 2,656 MW is imported from India.

Additionally, 18 thermal power plants with a total capacity of 11,303 MW are either under construction or in the tender process.

He also highlighted the government's plans to diminish crude oil import dependency in response to MP Nurunnabi Chowdhury's question.

A plan is in place to establish a new refinery with double the capacity of the current Eastern Refinery Limited, capable of refining 3 million tonnes. The project is slated for completion by the fiscal year 2028-29, Hamid said.