CHATTOGRAM, Oct 07: The test commissioning of Single Point Mooring (SPM) is likely to be held in the next month (November).
Officials at the Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) said the test transportation of crude petroleum will be held on November 4 this year while that of diesel will be held on November 9.
Sources said the long-awaited SPM, an offshore bouy designed to pump and siphon imported crude oil to a storage facility, is now ready for inauguration.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the SPM project in the current year.
Engineer Sharif Hasnat, project director of the SPM, told The Financial Express, "The SPM has already completed its pre-commissioning in the first week of June last. The pre-commissioning of crude oil pipeline started on June 25 and continued till June 28. Unloading of the crude oil from MT Horae took three days."
He said, "Chinese state-owned company China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co Ltd (CPPEC) is working as Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor while Germany-based ILF Consulting Engineers is engaged as a consultant. Besides, Netherlands-based company Blue Water completed the construction of SPM bouy."
"The test commissioning of crude petroleum will be held on November 4 next while the test commissioning of diesel will be held on November 9 next," he added.
He said, "The newly-constructed SPM awaits inauguration now. After successful test commissioning, the Prime Minster will inaugurate operation of the project in the current year."
Official sources said the SPM project is one of the top priority projects of the Energy Division as the project will substantially save the cost of fuel transportation.
The project was undertaken by the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) to transport imported raw petroleum to state-owned ERL at Patenga in Chattogram in order to reduce the transportation cost of petroleum fuel and also to ensure its prompt unloading from the deep sea vessels.
The SPM project was taken up in 2012 and after completing the official process, the government awarded the contract of the project to the Chinese company China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPP).
The CPPEC is a part of the CPP. The BPC signed a contract with the CPP on December 7, 2016 to implement the 'SPM with Double Pipeline'.
Under the project, there are installations of SPM and 220-kilometre double pipeline, storage tanks and pump station at Moheshkhali. Besides, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), a fire fighting station has also been set up.
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