CNG filling station owners across Bangladesh have announced a nationwide shutdown on 30 July, demanding an increase in the commission they receive on gas sales and warning of a longer strike if their concerns are not addressed.
The Bangladesh CNG Filling Station and Conversion Workshop Owners Association said all CNG filling stations across the country will remain closed from 6am until midnight on 30 July.
The association also warned that it will begin an indefinite nationwide shutdown from 23 August if the government fails to resolve its four-point demand.
The announcement came during a press conference held at Akram Tower in Dhaka’s Bijoynagar on Tuesday.
At the centre of the dispute is the commission paid to station owners for each cubic metre of CNG sold. The association is seeking an increase from Tk 8 to Tk 13.96 per cubic metre, arguing that the current rate has remained unchanged since 1 September 2015, despite a sharp rise in operating expenses.
According to the association, inflation, higher employee wages, rising electricity tariffs, changes in the exchange rate, increased bank guarantee charges and higher borrowing costs have significantly increased business expenses over the past decade.
Station owners said they are unable to recover those costs because both the purchase and retail prices of CNG are fixed by the government, leaving them with no flexibility to adjust prices for consumers.
Alongside the higher commission, the association has called for an automatic adjustment mechanism whenever the government increases the gas price for CNG production. It also wants government agencies to stop collecting additional security deposits from existing customers after gas price revisions and to reduce licence fees, renewal charges and access road lease fees.
To support its demand, the association presented calculations showing that electricity tariffs have increased seven times since 2015.
It said the latest tariff revision, introduced on 3 June, is expected to raise a typical station’s monthly electricity bill by around 20 per cent, requiring an additional Tk 2.46 per cubic metre to cover the extra cost.
It further estimated that another Tk 3.50 per cubic metre is needed to offset higher operational expenses linked to inflation, wage increases and foreign exchange movements, bringing the total requested increase to Tk 5.96 per cubic metre.
Association leaders also referred to a previous recommendation made by a technical committee formed by the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources and Petrobangla.
They said the committee had proposed raising the commission by Tk 2.98 per cubic metre, but the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) approved only a Tk 1 increase in 2015, leaving the remaining recommendation unimplemented.
The association claimed that the prolonged delay in revising the commission has placed nearly Tk 50 billion in investment in Bangladesh’s CNG sector at risk.
Its leaders added that repeated attempts to meet the energy minister and the chairman of BERC to discuss the issue had not been successful.
Unless an agreement is reached before the end of the month, motorists across Bangladesh could face widespread disruption to CNG supplies during the one-day shutdown, with the prospect of a longer nationwide stoppage from late August.
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