Bangladesh's state-run oil and gas authority said on Thursday it had approved a plan by U.S. energy firm Chevron to invest $52 million to augment natural gas supply in the country.

We have okayed the Chevron investment to install a gas compressor to ease the gas crisis in our country, said Muqtadir Ali, chairman of the Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation or Petrobangla.

Chevron will require two years to install the compressor in block 15 under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) and will recover the cost from gas sales, he told Reuters.

It will supply up to 60 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas a day.

On recovery of cost, the compressor will be handed over to the Gas Transmission Company Ltd (GTCL), a subsidiary of the Petrobangla.

The firm (Chevron), which alone supplies almost 40 percent of total gas consumed in the country, will sign a partnership contract with the GTCL.

Bangladesh now suffers a daily gas shortage of up to 250 mmcf that forced at least 300 manufacturing firms in southern Chittagong areas to halt their operations, officials said.

(Reporting by Serajul Islam Quadir; Editing by Anis Ahmed)

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