Deal with Qatar this month to import LNG

Bangladesh will sign a long-term deal with Qatar this month to import 3.7 million tonnes of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) annually from July 2018, Energy Division sources said.
"The government will strike an agreement worth around $2.28 billion by this month with RasGas to import LNG from Qatar under special agreement at a cheaper rate compared to other international market prices," a senior official of the Energy division told the Daily Observer on Sunday.
However, the sources did not disclose the price of LNG but mentioned that it would be driven by international market price, which is now around US$8 to US $9 per unit.  
"Qatar is willing to sign the deal on August 14. We need to take a vetting from the Law Ministry in this regard and hopefully we could be able to sign the deal by this month," the official added.
In October 2015, the government signed a "confidentiality" deal with RasGas to materialized the issue in Doha in October 2015 to facilitate import of LNG.
The Energy Division has already finalised the  terms and conditions of the draft agreement of importing LNG from Qatar.
"Our plan is to import LNG from March or April next year to meet the country's growing demand," officials said.
To ensure required amount of energy supply from next year, The Energy Division has taken up a massive plan to import LNG as the state-owned Petrobangla, supplies approximately 2,750 million cubic feet of natural gas a day from domestic gas fields against the demand for 3,500 million cubic feet gas.
Petrobangla signed two contracts with a foreign and a local company to facilitate increasing the daily gas supply by 1,000 million cubic feet from imported LNG through their floating terminals and re-gasification units to be set up near Maheskhali Island in Cox's Bazar.