Trafigura\\\'s competitive bid to import NGC from BPC

Trafigura, a globally-renowned independent commodity trading and logistic house, has offered competitive bid to import 120,000 barrels of natural gas condensate (NGC) from Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), a senior BPC official said on Monday.
He said the state-run BPC is set to award its August loading of condensate cargoes to Trafigura as the trader submitted better bid at a discount of US$ 0.38 per barrel to the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) naphtha assessments.
Olive's was the only other bid submitted into the tendering process on close of deadline on Monday, which offered a discount of $ 3.95 per barrel to MOPS naphtha assessments to buy BPC's condensate.
BPC had earlier set the pricing basis to MOPS naphtha assessment for selling the condensate.
The 120,000-barrel NGC parcel is for loading during August 23-25 from Chittagong port on free-on-board (FOB) basis.
The tender closed on August 3 and bids would remain valid until August 11.
Officials said the BPC re-initiated exporting NGC, after four years of its previous export, as the country's NGC output has been outpacing demand.
Bangladesh had earlier exported condensate for three years until 2011 when some 18 parcels of similar volume were exported.
BPC collects condensate as a spin-off from gas producing fields in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh's condensate output is currently around 8,800 barrels per day.
The condensate produced at various gas fields in the country is usually purchased by a number of private and public fractionation plants, petrochemical companies and the BPC's wholly-owned subsidiary Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) mainly for producing petrol and diesel.
But the supply of condensate increased recently with the increase of natural gas production from around 2,300 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) to around 2,700 mmcfd within the past several months.
Besides, some private petrochemical companies are not purchasing condensate from local sources as they have been preferring import of condensate, said the BPC official.
To cope with the oversupply of condensate, Petrobangla had to ask several gas producing companies to reduce natural gas production, the BPC official added.
mazizur.rahman@outlook.com