As public-and private power producers both keep mum on settling payments for oil supplies, purportedly amid financial hardship, the state-run petroleum importer has sought government intervention over the bill defaults.
Sources said Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) went on showing reluctance to pay over Tk 950 million it owes to another state-run agency, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC).
The BPDB owes the BPC the amount against furnace oil (HSFO) buy from the latter, a BPC document shows.
As such, the state agency has sought government intervention to help collect the overdue payments for the fuel oil from the BPDB that supplies the fuel to public-sector power plants.
“As per the frequent request made by BPC earlier, the corporation has asked the BPDB for paying off the dues, but to no response,” says one official.
The government agency has requested the Energy and Mineral Resources Division to call an inter-ministerial meeting to collect the dues from the power board. It imports, distributes and markets fuel oils and petroleum products.
The BPC has supplied fuel to the 10 furnace oil-based power plants owned by the Power Development Board through its subsidiary companies. But, of late, some privately run power plants also have turned to the state corporation for furnace oil although they used to import the fuel themselves to generate electricity until recently.
BPC’s subsidiaries-Padma Oil Company Limited, Jamuna Oil Company Limited, Meghna Oil Company Limited and Eastern Refinery limited (ERL)—received the fuel oils in 2020 for providing to different oil-fired power plants. The companies supplied such oil worth more than Tk 323 million at Tk 43 per litre against four invoices.
Besides, the marketing companies also supplied the cheapest fuels valued over Tk 632 million at Tk 41.00 per litre against eight invoices.
Generally the BPDB purchases furnace oil as per decision of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division.
When contacted, a senior official said, “We have requested the Energy and Mineral Resources Division to organise an inter-ministerial meeting to solve the payment problem with the power-development board.”
Though non-payment of furnace-oil price, which is hindering payment to such fuel suppliers by the BPC, the defaulters are not bothering to pay its dues, he added.
More or less, 6,000 megawatts of power is produced by the furnace oil-run power plants, which is more or less 27 per cent of the total, according to the BPDB.
Furnace oil is mostly used in power plants in the country, and most of it is consumed by privately owned power plants.
Bangladesh annually imports around 3.50 million tonnes of furnace oil with 3.5-percent sulphur, of which 3.20 million tonnes are imported by the private sector to run their power plants, and the remaining 300,000 tonnes by the BPC.
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