Iran has shown interest to export petroleum products to Bangladesh's growing market as the western sanction against the country is set to be removed.
Iran's Ambassador to Bangladesh Dr Abbas Vaezi Dehnavi conveyed the message to Bangladeshi State Minister for the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MoPEMR) Nasrul Hamid during a courtesy call at the secretariat on Wednesday.
"Iran has offered us to deliver petroleum products and assured that it would utilise the money to be earned through the oil export for buying Bangladeshi products like tea, jute, jute goods and textile," Mr Hamid told the FE after the meeting.
The energy-rich Iran is eager to export liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas, and supply equipment relating to power plants, he said.
Iran is also interested to get involved in the maintenance job of oil refinery, he said.
Mr Hamid during his meeting with the Iranian envoy sought support of the latter to build a petrochemical company.
Bangladesh never imported petroleum products from Iran.
The country's fuel import, is currently rising significantly as it has reduced its dependency on natural gas for power generation by setting up dozens of furnace oil and diesel-fired power plants.
Bangladesh began importing furnace oil from mid-2010, when furnace oil-fired power plants started coming online.
Prior to that, Bangladesh was a regular furnace oil exporter.
The country currently has 39 oil-fired power plants, of which 28 run on furnace oil with an overall generation capacity of 2,133 megawatts (mw) and the remaining ones are diesel-run.
Officials said the long-awaited deal inked by Iran and six major world powers on July 14 in Vienna opened up a new opportunity to initiate petroleum business between Bangladesh and Iran.
EU sanctions in 2012 banned the import of Iranian oil and prohibited most big oil companies from working with Iran, while American pressure forced Asian nations to reduce purchases, they said.
Once the agreement is ratified, sanctions on Iran by the United States and the European Union would be removed in return for Iran decelerating its nuclear programme.
mazizur.rahman@outlook.com
