Switzerland based Liquefied Natural Gas-LNG trading and supplying company AOT Energy is keen to provide necessary supply of this environment friendly fuel to Bangladesh at competitive price. A highly connected source with AOT Energy confirmed this on Friday (November 19).

This world-famous LNG giant from Switzerland now recalls its old communications with Bangladesh’s energy sector about a possible deal, which was waiting to be inked in mid-2018, but finally did not happen due to some unknown reasons, the source said.

That time the Bangladesh government was highly interested to get this highly demanding energy supply from AOT and advanced all communications with this company up to an agreement level around mid-2018 after an initial signing of Memorandum of Understanding-MoU in June 2017.

The government was progressing with a possible long-term LNG purchase deal with this Swiss Company, media reports said that time.

The decision was at final stage and was waiting for approval of the purchase committee of the cabinet of Bangladesh government which was initially slowed down and finally stopped, the source said. 

No official communication was made with AOT Energy about the future of the deal. It was neither cancelled, nor advanced. So still AOT Energy sees scopes of a Long-Term deal for LNG Supply to Bangladesh, the sources on a condition of anonymity said.

AOT has proved its capacity to supply LNG at a low price to this developing and middle-income country of emerging economies from the spot market also. At least four big volume supplies were made during the last two years, when Bangladesh chose to get LNG from the spot market instead of a long-term deal.

Presently the government is again shifting to a long-term deal as it has found the spot-market purchase of LNG incurred a huge loss, several media reports mentioned in recent time.

It was echoed in the version of Nasrul Hamid Bipu, state minister for energy and power in his comment published in a major online news portal. In a telephone conversation Mr Nasrul Hamid said that two years back several international organisations came to Bangladesh with a proposal of a long-term deal for LNG supply. But due to bureaucratic complications it could not happen.

“That time the cost was lower in the spot market and we decided to take the opportunity. But by now, the price of LNG has been hiked by more than three fold. So we have to pay a high cost for this, which cannot be continued.”

If we could ink more long-term deals that time, Bangladesh could be in a better position, Mr Nasrul Hamid added. 

AOT Energy also thinks so, the source connected to this Swiss Company said.

We offered a competitive price (lowest price until then) to Bangladesh at that time and if the deal could be materialized, the govt of Bangladesh could save more than a billion dollar from this, the source, connected to that deal said.