A single-point mooring (SPM) that remained stalled for at least five years for want of funds may move now as a Chinese firm is making arrangement of nearly $500 million to fund the project.
The SPM is meant for facilitating petroleum-product transportation from the anchorage in the Bay of Bengal to the onshore Eastern Refinery Ltd in the port city of Chittagong through more than 100-kilometre pipelines.
Once this dormant project is implemented, it will reduce fuel-unloading time by one-fifth to 2/3 days and also cut down cost of fuel transportation from the Bay to the onshore facility.
Chinese petroleum firm China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPPB), a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, conveyed their decision to the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of Bangladesh.
The firm along with representatives of the China EXIM Bank met with the ERD officials last week in Dhaka, ERD sources said.
Md Mosleh Uddin, a director at Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), told the FE that the ERD had informed them about the latest development.
"We're yet to get details from the Chinese petroleum company," he said.
The firm authorities are likely to meet them shortly on finalisation of the deal.
BPC sources said the SPM will cost $446 million now to connect the bay and the port-city depot through Moheshkhali.
The pipeline will run from the bay to Moheshkhali and then to Chittagong through a pipeline stretching more than 100 kilometres.
It is estimated that the singe-point mooring may save at least $10 million annually on account of unloading oil from ships in the deep sea.
The BPC currently pays around $5.50 per tonne to small vessels of the state-owned Bangladesh Shipping Corporation to ferry petroleum to the shore from larger vessels moored at the outer anchorage in the Bay of Bengal.
The state-owned fuel importer undertook the SPM terminal-installation project sometime in 2010 with the aim of checking pilferage and ensuring efficient handling of imported petroleum products.
This project will take at least three years to complete. They said the Chinese firm had shown interest to build the SPM on buyer's credit. It earlier submitted technical proposal in this connection.
The government has been looking out for funding assistance from interested financiers for long to build the much-needed SPM.
Earlier, the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank agreed to fund it partially. But this time, China will fund the project entirely.
Earlier, a feasibility study on the floating petroleum terminal was conducted by an international consultancy firm.
jasimharoon@yahoo.com
