Indian state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has proposed four pipeline routes to carry petroleum products from BPCL's Numaligarh refinery to oil storage tanks of state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) in the country's northern region, a top official said Monday.
BPCL proposed these routes to BPC after carrying out a preliminary survey to select final pipeline route for construction of a cross-country pipeline to facilitate fuel import from India, he said.
The length of these pipeline routes varies within the range from 127 kilometers (kms) to 140 kms.
"We are scrutinising all the pipeline routes, and will select one soon," BPC director (operations & planning) Mosleh Uddin told the FE Monday.
He said a final route survey will be carried out on the selected one to build the proposed pipeline.
Earlier, both the state-owned petroleum companies of Bangladesh and India agreed to build together the first cross-country oil import pipeline between them that will see an initial 300,000 tonnes per year of refined oil products transported from BPCL's Numaligarh refinery to Bangladesh.
Officials from the companies held several discussions over the proposed pipeline and agreed in principle to go ahead with the project.
If everything goes according to the plan, BPC might start importing refined oil products from Bharat Petroleum's refinery in north-eastern Assam within 2016.
BPCL has 61.5 per cent stakes with the 3.0 million tonnes per year capacity Numaligarh refinery, located near Bangladesh's north-eastern border. Oil India Limited has 26 per cent and the government of Assam has 12.35 per cent stakes with the refinery.
The project envisions an on-land pipeline, connecting the refinery plant to BPC's oil depot at Parbatipur in Dinajpur.
The Parbatipur oil depot is one of the largest oil depots in Bangladesh, with a current storage capacity of 10,383 tonnes.
BPC has planned to increase its oil storage capacity further by 15,000 tonnes to facilitate planned import from BPCL. Both BPC and BPCL have agreed to invest in the project, said the BPC official.
If successfully implemented, the pipeline is expected to reduce the country's oil import cost and importing time, as well as transportation loss, said sources.
BPC, Bangladesh's sole oil importer, is planning to initially import about 300,000 tonnes of refined oil products every year from the refinery, which could potentially increase to 1.0 million tonnes per year within three to four years, said the BPC official.
BPC is keen to import mainly diesel from the Numaligarh refinery to meet mounting demand, especially to operate diesel-run irrigation pumps in the northern region. It has also planned to import other refined oil products as well in future, in line with domestic requirements.
BPC has set a target to import around 5.81 million tonnes of petroleum products next year, up 7.50 per cent from the current calendar year, at a cost of around US$ 5.0 billion.
BPC's oil import has been increasing steadily over the past several years to meet the rising local demand, especially for oil-fired power plants.
azizjst@yahoo.com
BPCL suggests four pipeline routes to BPC
M Azizur Rahman | Published: January 06, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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