State-owned Petrobangla has approached the market for what it hopes will be Bangladesh’s first onshore liquefied natural gas import terminal, writes Amanda Battersby.

Subsidiary Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company has invited expressions of interest (EoIs) from prospective players to build a 7.5 million tonnes per annum receiving and regasification facility at Matarbari in the Cox's Bazar district in the south of the country.

The terminal will need to have a minimum regas capacity of 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas.

On the table will be a contract covering the design, engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of an LNG terminal on a build, own, operate and transfer basis.

The winning contractor will carry out initial survey and study work if needed, and will also be responsible for all the related marine facilities and gas pipeline connection.

However, Petrobangla company GTCL will take charge of the financing for, and construction of, a new 90-kilometre pipeline to deliver regasified volumes to the national grid.

The deadline for submission of EoIs is 20 March, with the aim of issuing bid documents to short-listed contractors by 29 August.

The government hopes work on the facility can start in December this year and be completed by June 2023.

According to the EoI notice, the terminal will need to handle LNG carriers of between 138,000 and 260,000 cubic metres.

Petrobangla is also stipulating that the facility’s capacity could be doubled to 15 million tpa in the future

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Bangladesh targets first onshore import terminal