State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Anindya Islam Amit said the country’s power situation would improve somewhat from this evening.
He said load-shedding would also decrease by evening, although it was not yet possible to specify when the fuel crisis would be fully resolved.
He told journalists this on Wednesday in response to questions at the Secretariat.
The state minister said gas supply from a floating LNG terminal had been suspended because the Bay of Bengal was rough. Another terminal could not operate at full capacity because of an accident. This had created a fuel crisis, reduced power generation and increased load-shedding.
There is no control over natural disasters, Amit said, adding that the government was making its greatest effort to manage the situation through alternatives.
He said LNG was being brought from Malaysia in ISO tanks and that experts and businesses were being consulted to address the crisis.
Domestic gas production cannot be increased overnight, he said, so the ministry was moving towards a long-term solution.
He blamed the previous Awami League government’s wrong policies in the power and energy sectors for the current crisis and said the country would eventually have faced such a crisis.
Amit said the crisis had increased people’s suffering because it began during the summer. He apologised to the public again and expressed regret.
He said the gas shortfall could not be filled because one LNG terminal was completely closed and another was operating at limited capacity. The government was taking all necessary steps to return the situation to normal.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report