CNG Queues Cost Drivers Working Hours, Income in Chattogram

For CNG-powered vehicle drivers in Chattogram, the working day is increasingly beginning not on busy roads but in long queues outside filling stations. Hours that would normally be spent carrying passengers and earning money are being lost while waiting for a limited supply of compressed natural gas.

For autorickshaw driver Abu Tayeb, the change has turned a routine working day into a financial struggle. He usually leaves home early in the morning, spends the day transporting passengers and pays a fixed amount to the vehicle owner at the end of his shift. Whatever remains goes towards supporting his family. Over the past two days, however, much of his working time has been consumed by waiting for gas.

Speaking at the Paharika CNG filling station in the Akbar Shah area of the city at around 10am on Tuesday, Tayeb said he had been waiting since 4am. After five hours in the queue, he was still waiting to refuel. He had spent the previous night in his vehicle, had breakfast at a hotel in the morning and was uncertain whether the day’s earnings would even cover those basic expenses.

“Half the day is gone by the time I get gas. After that, how much can I earn on the road? I still have to pay the owner and run my household,” he said.

Tayeb is far from alone. Hundreds of CNG-powered autorickshaw drivers are facing similar delays, while drivers of gas-powered buses, minibuses and microbuses are also struggling to keep their vehicles on the road.

Visits to several CNG stations in the city, including Paharika and Fossil in Sholashahar, found long lines of vehicles waiting for refuelling. Some drivers said they had already spent four or five hours in queues, while others reported waiting for as long as six hours.

Mohammad Abul Kashem, who was waiting at Paharika, said he had spent eight hours in the queue the previous day before finally obtaining gas. After driving for only about two hours, the fuel ran out, forcing him to return to the queue the following morning.

“Yesterday I stood in line for eight hours to get gas. After driving for two hours, it was finished. Today I came back at 6am. I do not know when I will get gas,” he said, adding that the amount of gas available was also insufficient to meet demand.

Drivers waiting outside the Fossil filling station said that, under normal circumstances, refuelling took around 20 to 30 minutes. The current delays, they said, were consuming a substantial part of their working day. As a result, they have less time to carry passengers and earn money.

For many drivers, the financial pressure is immediate. Those who operate under daily rental or deposit arrangements must still pay the vehicle owner a predetermined amount, regardless of how many hours they are able to work. Some are reportedly borrowing money to meet household expenses, while others are seeking higher fares from passengers in an attempt to compensate for lost income and rising operating costs.

Mohammad Nahid, a minibus driver operating on the Chattogram–Fatehabad route, said he normally earns between Tk1,500 and Tk2,000 a day. On the previous day, however, he returned home with only Tk600 and expected his earnings to fall further.

Transport sector representatives said a CNG-powered vehicle driver typically spends between 10 and 12 hours a day on the road. If five or six of those hours are lost at a filling station, nearly half of the driver’s potential working time disappears. The impact extends beyond drivers and vehicle owners. With fewer CNG-powered vehicles able to operate efficiently, passengers may face longer waits, reduced availability of public transport and, in some cases, pressure to pay higher fares.

The disruption has been linked to reduced gas supplies following a fire at a floating LNG terminal in Maheshkhali. The terminal, operated by Excelerate Energy, caught fire on 21 July, after which the volume of gas entering the national grid fell significantly. The resulting supply shortage has affected multiple sectors that depend on natural gas, including power generation, industry, residential consumers and CNG stations.

According to the Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Limited (KGDCL), the company received only around 190 million cubic feet of gas during the 24 hours up to 8am on Tuesday, against daily demand of approximately 350 million cubic feet. This represents a shortfall of roughly 160 million cubic feet.

Under normal allocation patterns, around 150 million cubic feet of gas is supplied daily to power plants, 90 million cubic feet to industries, 60 million cubic feet to residential consumers and 50 million cubic feet to the CNG sector. With overall availability reduced, supplies have had to be restricted across all these sectors.

The immediate burden, however, is particularly visible on city streets, where drivers are losing valuable working hours in queues that stretch for several hours. The disruption also risks creating a wider chain of consequences: reduced vehicle availability can increase passenger waiting times, weaken public transport capacity and put additional pressure on household budgets.

A KGDCL official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the company was distributing gas according to allocations provided by Petrobangla because of the reduced supply from the national grid. As a result, no sector was currently receiving enough gas to meet its full demand.

Repair work at the affected terminal is under way, with a specialist team working to restore operations as quickly as possible. The official expressed hope that gas supplies would return to normal within the week, although the experience of drivers waiting for hours at filling stations highlights the immediate economic cost of the disruption.

Until supply improves, drivers such as Abu Tayeb face a difficult choice: spend hours waiting for gas and lose income, or leave the queue and risk being unable to operate their vehicles. For thousands who depend on daily earnings, even a few days of such disruption can place considerable pressure on already tight household finances.