DHAKA: State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will now import 2,200 tons of diesel every month from India’s Numaligarh refinery through railway to meet demand of the fuel in the northern region of the country, said officials.
It will take at least two years to build a cross-border pipeline for transportation of Indian diesel to Bangladesh.
The BPC will take delivery of the diesel to Parbatipur inside Bangladesh, which would be transported by 50 wagons of Indian Railway, BPC director for operations and planning Sayed Mohammad Mozammel Haque said.
Top officials of the BPC and the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) agreed last week on the issue during a meeting in India.
The BPC and the BPCL also agreed on premium rate at US$ 5.50 per barrel to Mean of Platts Arab Gulf (MoPAG) diesel assessment on cost and freight (CFR) basis meaning that the price would be above US$ 5.50 per barrel from international price of diesel.
Bangladesh earlier had imported similar quantity of diesel through railway from the Numaligarh refinery, owned by Indian state-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) occasionally as a ‘friendship gesture’, he said.
Premium rate was $ 7.0 per barrel to MoPAG diesel assessment on CFR basis during the previous imports.
But from now on, the BPC would import 2,200 tons of diesel every month for 15 years, said the official.
Currently, the state-run oil corporation has been importing gasoil from international market at a premium rate of around $2.50 per barrel to the MoPAG diesel assessments on CFR basis, he said.
Although the premium rate is higher, India’s diesel consignment will save the costs the BPC will have incurred to transport diesel to Parbitupur from Chittagong port, said officials.
Separately, India’s BPCL will construct a 130-kilometre cross-country pipeline to export diesel to Bangladesh to the tune of 1.0 million ton per year for 15 years, said officials.
But it will take at least a couple of years to build the pipeline, he added.
The pipeline will touch Panchagarh, Nilphamari and Dinajpur inside Bangladesh to reach Parbatipur oil storage tanks.
Of the total 130 km, the length of pipeline inside Bangladesh will be 125 kilometer and in India it would be around five kilometer, said officials.
The BPC currently imports around 3.5 million tons of diesel annually to meet local demand.
