Oman Trading International Delivers LNG to Bangladesh
State-owned Oman Trading International (OTI) has started supplying LNG to Bangladesh, a senior Petrobangla official told NGW.
A vessel carrying around 136,000 m3 of LNG arrived at Excelerate Energy’s floating, storage and regasification unit Excellence at Moheshkhali Island in the Bay of Bengal January 28, the official said, adding that the cargo arrived three months ahead of schedule. OTI is the second company to supply LNG to Bangladesh after Qatar’s RasGas.
According to the official, utilisation rate of the terminal is expected to go up with the arrival of OTI cargo. Regasification at Bangladesh's first, and only, installed floating LNG import terminal was halted last November due to a fault with an underwater valve. Excellence resumed regasification November 15 after the problem was fixed.
Bangladesh signed a sales and purchase agreement signed in May 2018 under which OTI will supply 1mn mt/yr of LNG over 10 years. The first cargo was scheduled to reach Bangladesh in May 2019. Under the OTI SPA, deliveries will be split equally between two terminals, one owned Excelerate; and the other by local Summit Group. The terminal owned by Summit is expected to come online in April.
The base volume of LNG to be imported from OTI by Petrobangla is 900,000 mt/yr, with take or pay below that. Payment is due within 25 days of each delivery.