Bangladesh's natural gas reserves are dwindling fast, pushing the country to depend heavily on costly spot purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to keep industries and power plants running.
Experts warn that unless new gas fields are discovered and production begins from untapped reserves, the country's local supply could run dry within the next eight years.
Petrobangla data shows that of the 29.74 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of extractable gas reserves discovered so far, 21.08tcf has already been extracted. Only 8.66tcf remained as of June 2024.
Daily output from domestic fields has fallen to around 1,800 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), down a third from 2,700mmcfd in 2017.
"Local production is declining but demand is rising in every sector," said a senior official at Petrobangla. "To meet the gap, we have no choice but to increase LNG imports."
