For over a year, the massive buildings of Bangladesh’s Ashuganj fertilizer industry have been silent while a natural gas crisis closes businesses, causes power outages, and ignites demonstrations over fuel shortages. In the past, urea, which farmers relied on to grow crops for the 170 million people in the nation, was produced by machinery that ran nonstop using natural gas. Once employing over 1,200 people and producing over 1,000 tons of fertilizer each day, the state-owned facility is now reduced to a rusty shell.
The US-Iran war has stifled imports from the Middle East, and Ashuganj closed in March 2025 as the nation struggled with a gas scarcity brought on by a decline in output due to underinvestment in aging fields and exploration.”It has lost its life; CNG-powered autorickshaws waiting for long hours to refuel in Bangladesh’s Brahmanbaria district,” stated Md. Bazlur Rashid, 59, who worked his entire career at Ashuganj, which was constructed close to the eastern Titas gas field.
Because of gas constraints, the firm is one of six major urea fertiliser facilities that have been forced to shut down or limit operations. The shutdowns, according to trade union leader Md. Abu Kawsar, have cost people their jobs and put a food security-related industry in jeopardy.
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