State-run Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) would refine around 1.25 million tonnes of brent crude oil in fiscal year 2017-18, down 10 per cent a year earlier, due to overhauls.
"We shall refine less crude this year as the refinery carried on a two-month overhauling until early March,' said a senior ERL official.
The ERL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, refined 1.39 million tonnes of crude oil in FY 2016-17, he said.
The ERL was established in 1968 in the port city of Chittagong having the capacity to refine 1.50 million tonnes of crude oil for 30 years of its economic life.
Despite the expiry of the life-term, the ERL is still in operation as the country does not have any other refinery.
A consortium of three French companies led by Technip had installed the ERL.
The French firm has recently submitted the draft of a final design to the corporation to build a new crude oil refinery in the country with the capacity of 3.0 million tonnes a year within the vicinity of the ERL unit.
The detailed engineering plan and cost estimation over the new refinery project will be carried out on the basis of final front end engineering and design (FEED) by Technip.
The French firm is expected to finalise the design and send it to the BPC soon, a senior BPC official said.
Last year, the BPC assigned Technip to carry out the design work of the proposed refinery at a cost of 2.57 billion (US$ 32.10 million).
Indian consulting firm Engineers India Limited (EIL) has been acting as the project management consultant to implement the second unit of ERL, he said.
In November 2016, BPC had signed a memorandum of understanding with Technip in Dhaka over building the new refinery.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
