Decision on gas price hike likely in November

The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission is likely to defer the gas price hike decision to November as it has received some important post-hearing opinions after the October 6 deadline.
The commission at a public hearing on September 24 announced it would give its decision on 66 per cent gas price hike proposal of Petrobangla by October as the last date of submission of post-hearing opinions was October 6.
‘We may announce the decision on gas price hike in early November as the Consumers Association of Bangladesh submitted its opinions on Sunday, after the deadline. We have to take its opinions into consideration as it is one of the important stakeholders,’ a member of the commission told New Age on Monday.
He said the CAB, which was against the Petrobangla proposal to hike gas price, had pointed a number of issues in the post-hearing submission.
‘Fixing the price of gas is a complicated issue. We have to take into account opinions of all. It may take more than 20 days before coming to a conclusion as we will ask Petrobangla for further clarifications,’ he said.
Commission sources said they were trying to give a decision on the matter as soon as possible as the general election was nearing.
Sources in the commission said complexities had also surfaced as the commission did not receive all documents from Petrobangla in time.
Petrobangla officials, on the other hand, said there was a misunderstanding as some of the documents like the authentication letter did not reach the commission although Petrobangla had sent that.
Petrobangla submitted the application to hike the gas price on June 23 and the commission accepted the application after a meeting on July 17.
Different stakeholders including energy experts, representatives of CAB, Transparency International Bangladesh, business associations, Power Development Board, and Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation gave their opinions in favour of or against the Petrobangla proposal.
When the commission chairman, Ghulam Rahman, was asked whether the gas price hike decision would be taken in the next month, he told New Age on Monday, ‘We are trying our best to give a decision by this month. If we can not do that, we will give the decision early next month as, according to the BERC act, we have time till November 30 to give a decision.’
He said as per the Act the commission was supposed to give a decision on the price hike within 90 working days from the date of acceptance of the application.
When asked whether the commission would consider the global economic crisis and its effect on Bangladesh industries in fixing the gas tariff, Ghulam said, ‘We will definitely consider the interest of the consumers including the industries and see if Petrobangla can continue gas supply to the industries in the long run.