Bangladesh's Summit LNG Pauses FSRU Operations Due to Cyclone Damage

Bangladesh's Summit LNG has paused operations at its floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) in Moheshkhali after it was hit by a stray pontoon during a cyclone on May 27, the company said in a statement to Reuters on Friday.

"There was damage to the ballast water tank of the FSRU," the statement said, adding an expert surveyor was on the way to board the FSRU to assess the damage.

"Due to the sensitive and explosive nature of handling liquefied natural gas (LNG) and national importance of FSRU in terms of gas supply to the national grid, Summit and the FSRU operator are taking full precaution in rectifying the matter before resuming normal operations," it added.

Cyclone Remal brought gales and heavy rain to the coastlines of India and Bangladesh earlier this week, killing at least 16 people and cutting power to millions. It is the first of the frequent storms expected to pound the low-lying coasts of South Asia this year, as climate change drives up surface temperatures at sea.

Summit's FSRU is one of Bangladesh's two floating LNG import terminals, with a regasification capacity of 500 million cubic feet per day that supplies gas to the national grid. It began commercial operations in April 2019.

Summit added in its statement that it was in close communications with Bangladesh's state-owned Petrobangla and Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Ltd (RPGCL).

It did not say when operations of the FSRU would resume.

With a population of over 170 million people, Bangladesh relies on LNG to meet power demand. It has seen annual imports increase, and last year shipped in 5.2 million metric tons of the fuel, according to data from analytics firm Kpler.

(Reuters - Reporting by Emily Chow in Singapore, Rahul Paswan and Harshit Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)

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