The government is set to export natural-gas condensate – a source of petrol and octane – for the first time ever as its production has outpaced local demand. Condensate, a liquid petroleum that comes with raw natural gas during extraction, is refined into petrol and octane at refineries. Naphtha, a byproduct of crude, is the lone petroleum product that Bangladesh exports till date, produced at the Eastern Refinery of the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation. Petrobangla, the state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources Corporation, will export the excess gas condensate through the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation. On Monday, BPC is scheduled to open bids from international companies to export the first consignment of condensate, the corporation chairman AM Badruddoja told New Age on Sunday. ‘We will export 15,000 tonnes of condensate this time,’ he said, adding that a few more tenders will follow soon as the stock has piled up. Neither the BPC chairman nor officials of Petrobangla gave any estimate of the quantity of condensate the government will export annually. At present, 12 refineries, four are in the public sector and the rest private, process the current supply of condensate extracted from the country’s 21 gas fields and sell them to BPC’s marketing companies. The private refineries are also allowed to import condensate to refine into petroleum products. The country’s annual production of condensate increased by over 70 per cent, mainly after Chevron Bangladesh set up a liquid recovery unit at Bibiyana gas field towards the end of 2014. In the 2013-14 financial year, the state-owned and international oil companies extracted some 321,000 tonnes of condensate, and the quantity increased to 360,000 tonnes the following fiscal. Energy division estimated the extraction of condensate would rise to 560,000 tonnes in the ongoing fiscal, 2015-16. The country’s demand for petrol and octane, however, remained stuck at less than 350,000 tonnes per annum due to use of compressed natural gas or CNG, in private cars, pickup vans, buses and auto rickshaws, in the big cities, including Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong, a BPC official said. Mostly motorbikes and private cars run on petrol and octane. In July, prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who also holds the portfolio of power, energy and mineral resources ministry, approved a proposal of Petrobangla to export the condensate after meeting the country’s demand for its refined products — petrol and octane. Now, the public and private sector operators of 21 gas fields can supply over 1,330 tonnes of condensate a day, of which Chevron alone can supply about 1,000 tonnes from the Bibiyana field. Petrobangla officials said the operators of the gas fields often had to reduce the level of gas extraction whenever condensate overburdened the storage capacity. Sometimes, the operators supply condensate-mixed gas to the transmission lines, which affect the transmission of natural gas during winter season, they said. The condensate-mixed gas also affects the engines of power plants and fertiliser factories, they said.
