Twelve companies have expressed interest in building Bangladesh’s first onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal.
The LNG project in Bangladesh is on a 20-year build-own-operate basis. Ownership will then be transferred to the Bangladeshi government or a company nominated by the government at no cost.
A committee is expected to evaluate the proposals before shortlisting a few and it could take more than a year to complete and award the contract for the terminal.
The expression of interest is for the design, EPC, and the commissioning of an onshore terminal that can handle 7.5 million tonnes a year of LNG, including receiving, unloading, storage, and regasification.
A joint venture of Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil is one of the 12 companies that expressed interest in building the LNG import terminal.
According to a document by the Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Co. (RPGCL), a unit of the Bangladesh Mineral Oil & Gas Corporation, the companies that submitted formal expressions of interest are units of Shell, Total, and Samsung.
Other companies on the list are Mitsui, Petronet, Poly-GCL Petroleum. Also, four other joint ventures expressed their interest. One of them is a JV between Marubeni Corp and Osaka Gas while the other are JVs between Sumitomo and Chugoko Electric; United Enterprises, Posco, and KOGAS as well as a JV between Summit, Mitsubishi, and JERA.
The final company to express interest was the Japan Investment Corporation.