The state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has moved to assess the country's actual energy consumption by compiling private sector's import data following suspected clandestine sourcing of fuels.
Currently, the corporation does not have any data of private-sector import of energy products and condensate.
Recently, it sought last two years' import data of all types of energy products from the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to know how much the private-sector businesses import.
"The BPC needs the private sector's import data to detect the dishonest filling stations, agents and packed dealers (involved in dealing in energy products). It will compare the data with the country's actual demand for fuel oils," BPC chairman Md Mahmud Reza Khan wrote in a letter to the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources.
The ministry forwarded the letter to the NBR for taking necessary steps regarding the matter of energy trade.
On the search list are data of energy product imports, including furnace oil, diesel, and condensate, for 2014-15 and 2015-16, names of importing companies, names of energy products, volume of products in tonnes and time of import.
"Many private power-producing companies are importing energy products from abroad, apart from BPC. Some private-sector fractionation plants also import condensate. BPC does not have any data on private sector's import of energy products and condensate," the chairman wrote.
It cannot assess the country's actual demand for energy products due to absence of those data, he said.
Also, the letter says, the BPC is facing difficulty in finding out actual production of condensate by the plant owners as it does not have import data of condensate by local private refinery owners.
As per law, filling stations have to procure fuel oils from BPC. There is an allegation that some of the gas stations, agents and packed dealers have nexus with the private-sector refineries. They are supplying adulterated fuel oils in the country.
The BPC annually imports 1.4 million tonnes of crude oil from 10 countries under state-to-state deals and refines it at the state-run Eastern Refinery Limited.
BPC is a statutory organisation of the government under the Ministry of Power, Energy & Mineral Resources (MPEMR). Its task is to supervise, coordinate and control all the activities relating to import, storage, marketing and distribution of petroleum products in the country and to develop or establish infrastructure facilities to deal in petroleum.
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