Urgent import of 175,000-tonne oils approved

Government's purchase body approves urgent procurement of 175,000 tonnes of fuel oils to face the fallouts from the Mideast turmoil, as queues to filling stations have little respite.

The Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase, in its meeting Tuesday with Finance and Planning Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury in the chair, also gave the go-ahead to hiring a foreign consultant for a Dhaka WASA project.

Moreover, the meeting approved another proposal from the Directorate of Food to buy 30 million prices of hessian sacks through an open tender. The procurement will cost Tk 2.15 billion.

Under the approval on fuel purchase, the DBS Trading House FZCO will supply 50,000 tonnes of EN590-10ppm diesel and 25,000 tonnes of gasoline-95 unleaded octane to meet the oil demand in the country amid short supply.

To be bought under direct-purchase method, the total procurement will cost Tk 10.23 billion.

Also, the meeting gave approval for Archer Energy LLC to supply 0.1 million tonnes of

EN590-10ppm sulfur diesel under direct purchase "to make the procurement faster". The import will cost Tk 6.74 billion.

The committee approved the appointment of a single-source consulting firm for Dhaka WASA's Dhaka Environmentally Sustainable Water Supply (DESWS) project. Fichtner GmbH & Co. KG (GER) has been appointed consultant for the project services with a total cost of Tk 970 million for a period of 24 months.

Meantime, a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on the day at the secretariat, also chaired by the finance minister, approved a proposal to lower the international open-tender period for the import of refined fuel oils by Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) from 42 days to 10 days for faster supply to meet exigencies.

syful-islam@outlook.com