Talks with Oman to strike final deal from Jan 23

The Energy Division is set to start negotiation with Oman to ink a final deal to procure 1 million tonnes of LNG (liquefied natural gas) per year from January 23.
"In September last year, we signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with state owned Oman Petroleum Company to import LNG. We are now at the negotiation stage, we send a "Draft Copy" of the agreement to Oman authority," Mohammad Kamruzzaman, Managing Director of Rupantorito Prakitik Gas Company (RPGCL) and head of the government committee of LNG procurement told the Daily Observer on Tuesday evening.
Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Ltd (RPGCL), a state owned subsidiary of Petrobangla in charge of the country's LNG purchase, has set out specifications for spot LNG it will import separately.
According to RPGCL) MD, the government is now working on initiating negotiation with Oman to fix up volume, price and specification of the LNG import.
According to the Power Division, the country will require 3,000mmcfd gas by 2041 against the existing daily demand for 3,400 mmcfd and availability of 2,700 and the other amount of gas will come through LNG.
Gas Sector Master Plan 2017 apprehended that Bangladesh would need to import of around 30 million tonnes of LNG per year for meeting mounting demand from various sectors including industries, power plants and fertiliser plants by 2041 as domestic gas reserves are depleting fast.
To address the gas demand, the government has signed MoUs with Oman, Indonesia and Malaysia to import LNG on government to government arrangements in view of its rapidly growing demand. Under the proposed deals, 60 LNG-laden cargo vessels would carry the fuel to Bangladesh annually.
Meanwhile, if Bangladesh successfully carried the draft, this will be the third LNG supply agreement.
 On September 25, 2017, Bangladesh signed a long-term "LNG Sales and Purchase Agreement with Qatar's RasGas" to import up to 2.5 million tonnes of LNG annually to meet the country's growing energy demand.
"RPGCL also has received expressions of interests from 39 global firms to supply LNG on a spot basis on August 17.
A dozen of companies would be short-listed within September to start negotiation for importing LNG from spot market," Zaman said.
Bangladesh's first LNG import terminal, a 3.75 million tonnes per year FSRU (floating, storage, re-gasification unit) being developed by US-based Excelerate Energy, is expected to be commissioned by April 2018.
A second FSRU, having similar capacity, is also expected to be commissioned by the end of 2018.
Petrobangla earlier inked an initial agreement on July 13 to import annually around 2.5 million tonne of lean LNG from Qatar's RasGas over 15 years.