The US dollar crisis has hit the country's power and energy sectors by creating a huge backlog in payment of their import bills.

Official sources said the total outstanding bills of the two sectors' have already jumped to about $5 billion. Of the total, the outstanding amount with the power sector is about $4 billion (about Tk 43,093 crore) and the remaining 1 billion is with the energy sector.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid also admitted the severity of the crisis.

“We're not getting dollars from Bangladesh Bank as per our needs," he told journalists recently noting that the power and energy sectors need at least $1 billion a month to meet payment obligations.

the two main state-owned organisations' energy sector – Petrobangla and Bangladesh Petroleum Corporations have to spend huge amounts to import primary fuels like crude and refined petroleum and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from abroad.

Petrobangla also needs to pay foreign gas companies like Chevron to purchase natural gas to meet the local demands. All are paid in foreign currencies.

Similarly, the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) has to purchase electricity from independent power producers (IPPs) in dollars.

In addition, it has to import 2500 MW of electricity from India of which 1500 MW is coming from Adani power plant.

Sources familiar with the situation said that under the existing arrangement, the BPDB pays some large IPPs like SS Power, Payra, Rampal and Adani in foreign currency while the other IPPs are paid in local currency but they are allowed to convert the payment in foreign currency as deals' obligation.

"Each day we need at least 40 million US dollars from Bangladesh Bank to meet our payment obligation. But we're getting 5-7 million dollars a day", a top official of the BPDB said on condition of anonymity.

The Petrobangla and BPC also need huge foreign currency, particularly the US dollar to continue its petroleum and gas imports and also to buy gas from foreign gas companies.

According to BPC's Annual Report, the total import of petroleum products was about 6.86 million metric tons and the total expenses of import was $6 billion (equivalent to Tk 62,132.61 crore) in fiscal 2022-23.

For the financial year 2023-24, the BPC planned to import more petroleum products than the previous fiscal, officials said.  

Petrobangla has also to import over 5 million metric tons from Qatar Gas, Oman Trading, and the Spot market spending $4.5 billion. It has also to pay US giant Chevron to buy gas from its three gas fields where unpaid bills now stand at $300 million due to backlog in payment.