The long-awaited single-point mooring-an offshore bouy designed to pump and siphon imported crude oil to a storage facility-is set to partially start operations off the coast of Cox's Bazar's Moheshkhali, reports bdnews24.com.
Officials at the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) said the first pipeline of the SMP will be commissioned on a trial basis on Jun 25 by unloading a petroleum shipment from Saudi Arabia.
"On the night of Jun 24, a ship carrying 82,000 tonnes of crude oil from Saudi Arabia will arrive at the mooring point in Moheshkhali. A trial run will begin on Jun 25," said Md Lokman, managing director of ERL.
Preparations have also been made to commission the second pipeline, according to him.
Officials are hopeful about officially inaugurating the facility sometime in July or August.
At present, the country imports more than 6 million tonnes of fuel by sea. But infrastructural limitations at the Chattogram Port and navigability issues along the Karnaphuli channel prevent mother vessels from offloading fuel directly.
As a result, these tankers are anchored in the deep sea and unload crude oil through small lighterage vessels. It takes about 11 days to unload a tanker with a capacity of 100,000 DWT.
As the method is time-consuming, risky and expensive, the SMP project was initiated in 2015. The project was supposed to be completed by December 2018 at a cost of Tk 49.4 billion, but the deadline has already been extended three times.
The delays also drove up the project outlay to Tk 71.3 billion. ERL authorities believe that the cost will rise a bit more due to the increase in the value of the US dollar.
On the project duration and cost of the initiative, Lokman, "A lot of time was wasted on securing loans from China's Exim Bank. Then when the work eventually started, the COVID-19 pandemic came as a fresh setback."
"After overcoming all the hurdles, the project is finally ready to become a reality. It is a high-tech project and a novel one in Bangladesh."
The facility is capable of pumping 9 million tonnes of refined and crude oil annually, he added. "It will save time and around Tk 8 billion annually."
The mooring point has been set up in the deep sea, 9 km southwest of Matarbari in Moheshkhali. When mother vessels arrive at the mooring point, the oil will be unloaded and pumped to the Kalaramchhara storage tank. It will then be pumped to the Eastern Refinery pipeline.
The time to offload a tanker will drop to 48 hours from 11 days once the SPM starts running, according to its Project Director Sharif Hasnat.
The ERL is implementing the project under a G2G contract between Bangladesh and China.
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