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Unipec, Vitol offer best bids on fuel oil supply

M Azizur Rahman | Monday, 20 May 2019


Unipec Singapore Pte Ltd and Vitol Asia Pte Ltd offered best bids to supply up to 1.345 million tonnes of refined petroleum oil products to state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) during July-December, 2019.
The costs of BPC in importing refined oil products might be lower as both the suppliers offered lower premium rates for supplying most of the products, excepting furnace oil, compared to the BPC's previous tender.
The premium rates they offered are also lower as compared to the BPC's existing premium rates for importing refined oil products under term deals.
The BPC is expecting to import up to 1.12 million tonnes of 0.05 per cent sulfur gasoil (diesel), 110,000 tonnes of jet fuel, 100,000 tonnes of furnace oil and 15,000 tonnes of octane under the tendering system during the second half of 2019.
A total of six companies, including Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), Petrochina Singapore Pte Ltd, PTTEP Singapore and Gunvor, had submitted bids on the close of bid submission deadline on May 16, BPC director for operations and planning Syed Mehdi Hasan told the FE on Sunday.
The BPC is currently evaluating the tender, which is expected to be done by next week, said Mr. Hasan.
The BPC intends to import the petroleum products under four groups, namely Group A, Group B, Group C and Group D on CFR (cost and freight) basis at Chattogram port.
Under Group A, the selected international oil supplier would provide 480,000-510,000 tonnes of diesel and 60,000 tonnes of jet fuel.
Under Group B category, the selected international oil supplier would provide 460,000-610,000 tonnes of diesel and 50,000 tonnes of jet fuel.
For group C, the selected supplier would provide 60,000-100,000 tonnes of furnace oil and under Group D, the selected international oil supplier would provide 15,000 tonnes of octane.
In its bid, the Unipec has offered to supply up to 1.12 million tonnes of diesel (gasoil) at a premium of $2.66 per barrel to Mean of Platts Arab Gulf (MoPAG) 0.05 per cent sulfur gasoil assessments on a CFR (cost and freight) basis for both Group A and Group B, which is 7.0 per cent and 9.83 per cent lower than the existing premium rates under tendering.
Unipec also offered to supply 110,000 tonnes of jet fuel at a premium of $3.66 per barrel to MOPAG jet fuel assessments, on CFR basis, which is same to the existing premium rate under tendering.
Vitol Asia has offered to supply around 15,000 tonne of 95 RON gasoline (octane) at a premium of $4.10 per barrel to MOPAG assessments for gasoline, which is 2.61 per cent lower than the existing premium rate under tendering.
Vitol Asia also has offered to supply up to 100,000 tonnes of furnace oil at a premium of $24.88 per tonne to MOPAG assessments for furnace oil, which is 11.34 per cent higher than the existing premium rate to import furnace oil under tender.
Currently, the BPC has been importing diesel at a premium rate of $2.95 per barrel, jet fuel at a premium rate of $3.95 per barrel, furnace oil at a premium rate of $29.75 per tonne and octane at a premium of $5.50 per barrel under term deals.
The BPC currently imports around 3.5 million tonnes of diesel annually while 200,000 tonnes of furnace oil, 350,000 tonnes of jet fuel and 30,000 tonnes of octane.
The state-run oil corporation sources around half of its refined oil products through open tender and the remaining half through government to government negotiations.
Currently, BPC has term contracts with eight global oil suppliers to import refined oil products.
The term suppliers of refined oil products to BPC include Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Malaysia's Petco Trading Labuan Company, Emirates National Oil Company, PetroChina Singapore, Chinese Zhenhua Oil Company Ltd, Petrolimex Singapore of Vietnam, Philippine National Oil Corporation, and Indonesia's Bumi Siak Pusako.
BPC also imports annually around 700,000 tonnes of Murban crude from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., around 700,000 tonnes of Arab Light from Saudi Aramco for its lone operational 1.50 million mt/year capacity refinery -- Eastern refinery Ltd - located in Chattogram.

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