Bangladesh's prolonged gas supply crisis is expected to ease gradually after the damaged floating LNG terminal at Moheshkhali resumed partial operations following a nearly two-week outage that had severely disrupted gas supplies across the country.

The terminal has begun injecting around 115 million cubic feet of gas per day (MMCFD) into the national grid, marking the first phase of recovery after a technical fault and subsequent fire forced the shutdown of one of the country's two floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) on July 21. 

The outage slashed LNG regasification by about 450 MMCFD, worsening an already acute gas shortage and affecting households, industries, power plants and CNG filling stations nationwide. At the height of the crisis, Bangladesh was meeting only a little over half of its estimated daily gas demand of around 3,800 MMCFD. 

Petrobangla officials said the partial restoration is expected to improve gas pressure in phases, although consumers may continue to experience shortages until the terminal returns to full operational capacity.

According to Petrobangla Chairman Md Abdul Mannan, repair work is progressing, with the first unit now back in partial service. The second unit is expected to be repaired and resume operations within days, allowing gas supply to return to near-normal levels. 

Bangladesh relies on two floating LNG terminals at Moheshkhali to supplement declining domestic natural gas production. Together, the terminals normally supply around 1 billion cubic feet of regasified LNG daily to the national grid, making them critical to the country's energy security. 

The disruption had forced many industries, particularly textile and garment factories, to scale back production due to inadequate gas supply, while residential consumers in Dhaka and other regions also faced low gas pressure.

Energy officials expressed hope that the resumption of LNG supply will gradually restore stability to the national gas network and reduce disruptions to industrial production and electricity generation as repair work continues.