The state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is finally going into automation by June to bring about transparency and accountability in its fiscal transactions.
"We've already awarded the task of developing software to a local company for full automation of the BPC's payment system," the BPC Chairman Md Shamsur Rahman told the FE on Monday.
The Computer Network Systems (CNS) is committed to develop the software and initiate its application by early June, he said.
The BPC is the biggest company of the country with an annual turnover of over Tk 500 billion (US$ 6.0 billion).
The Ministry of Finance, the major fund provider of the BPC's oil trading, has long been pressing for automation of the company's payment and operations.
But a vested quarter has long been active to delay the automation process, it has been alleged.
"Although the deal with the CNS is to activate the automation by early June, the company has assured us of completing it even earlier," said Mr Rahman.
He also said with this automation the BPC will get payments of its oil sales much quickly. It will also help check 'oil pilferage,' by any vested group.
A Spanish company might bag a contract to develop software within four and a half months to ensure automation in the corporation's operations, the BPC chief noted.
The BPC will be fully automated in terms of measuring its petroleum products along with their loading and unloading with the development of the operational software, he added.
Currently, the BPC conducts all its works manually. It carries out loading and unloading of petroleum products as well as receives and makes payments against oil trading manually.
Since initiation of its operations there have been a lot of allegations and incidences of oil pilferage and theft of the BPC's petroleum products and embezzlement of its funds due to absence of any automated system, industry insiders said.
The BPC purchases petroleum products from international market and sells those at the government-fixed rates domestically.
The movement of oil prices in international market helps the BPC attain profit or incur loss.
Currently the BPC is incurring a loss of around Tk 110 million every day from oil trading, said officials.
The BPC imported 6.7 million tonnes of different petroleum products in FY 2018, including diesel, jet fuel, furnace oil and octane. In FY 2019, it might require to import around 7.5 million tonnes of petroleum products.
They also said the BPC never attained profit during its operations from the fiscal year (FY) 2002 until October 2014.
The drastic fall in oil prices in international market in October 2014 and afterwards helped the BPC to attain profit in an era.
The BPC's profit continued until October 2017 due to a slump in international oil prices.
The corporation also paid Tk 22 billion to the public exchequer in FY 2016 and FY 2017 as dividend from its profit.
The company also paid dues worth Tk 30.90 billion to the state-owned Sonali Bank, Janata Bank, Agrani Bank and Rupali Bank, Tk 17.58 billion to the Petrobangla, and Tk 6.03 billion as overdue value-added tax (VAT) to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) over the past several years.
Before late 2014, the BPC had incurred a loss of Tk 23.32 billion in FY 2013-14, and Tk 48.32 billion in FY 2012-13.
In FY 2011-12, the loss was Tk 113.71 billion, and Tk 88.40 billion in FY 2010-11. The BPC counted loss every year during the period between FY 2001-02 and FY 2013-14.
After October 2017, the BPC started witnessing its profit margin swinging both ways. Sometimes it reached break-even point. All these happened due to the fickle oil prices in international market, insiders said.
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