Gas Shortage Shuts 80 Percent of Narsingdi Textile Mills in Bangladesh
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A severe natural gas shortage has shut roughly 80 percent of textile and dyeing mills in Narsingdi, wiping out an estimated Tk 500 crore in daily output.
The industrial hub supplies about 75 percent of domestic fabric demand in Bangladesh, leaving garment makers without essential materials as international buyers cancel orders.
Rotting Fabric and Idled Boilers
Narsingdi houses more than 3,000 production units, including 2,500 sizing, spinning, dyeing and weaving mills. About 400 of these operations rely on uninterrupted natural gas at 10 to 15 pounds per square inch to run steam boilers and drying machines. Gas pressure in key industrial pockets like Madhabdi and Chowala fell to zero for four straight days, leaving chemically treated fabric stranded mid-cycle. Fabric left wet beyond 16 hours rots and turns unusable.
Local industry groups estimate between 10 million and 15 million yards of fabric have been ruined. At Tithi Textile in Madhabdi, 250,000 yards were damaged after generators and machinery stopped. Facing steep losses and wage deadlines, more than 100 mills closed indefinitely, sending workers home on unpaid leave. Others turned to burning wood in steam boilers at a cost of Tk 12,000 a day, skirting local environmental permits after the price of scrap fabric waste spiked.
Supply Chain Bottlenecks Spread
The disruption traces back to July 21, when a technical fault crippled an offshore floating liquefied natural gas terminal at Moheshkhali. National gas output plunged from 2,650 million cubic feet per day to 2,175 mmcfd against total demand of 3,800 mmcfd. State distributor Petrobangla lifted supply to 2,300 mmcfd on August 22, but state utility Titas Gas diverted high-pressure flows of 200 PSI to the Ghorashal-Palash fertiliser plant, starving private textile processors.
Bangladesh remains the world’s second-largest apparel exporter, yet its supply chain faces recurring energy vulnerabilities that threaten delivery timelines for global fashion brands. While competing manufacturing hubs in Vietnam and India rely on more diversified power grids, Bangladeshi mills remain exposed to single-point infrastructure failures in offshore gas infrastructure, compounding margin pressure from rising domestic debt.
Titas Gas engineers expect regional gas pressure to show initial signs of recovery next week as repair teams complete work on the Moheshkhali LNG terminal.