The state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) now plans to install three pipelines for carrying crude and refined petroleum products separately from the deep-sea pushing up the project cost fourfold.
Instead of a single pipeline as planned earlier, now the three pipelines would be installed along with building of a single point mooring (SPM) in the Bay at a cost of US$ 500 million (50 crore), said officials.
"Installing the pipelines will minimise the petroleum import costs significantly compared to a single pipeline," BPC chairman AM Badrudduja has told the FE.
Under the new plan the BPC would build an 18-kilometere-long and 36-inch-diameter pipeline from the SPM to Moheshkhali Island to carry both crude and refined petroleum products. Two more separate pipelines-92 kilometres in length and 18 inches in diameter-would be built parallel to each other from Moheshkhali to the Chittagong depot, he said.
The SPM is an infrastructure to be built and moored in the Bay. Petroleum products will be unloaded from mother vessels there before being carried through the pipelines to storage tanks.
Initially the BPC had planned to build a single pipeline along with the SPM at an estimated cost of around US$ 136 million (13.6 crore).
A Pakistani firm had guesstimated the project cost on the basis of a feasibility study conducted by it back in 2010, a senior BPC official said.
The Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) subsequently had agreed to provide $ 129 million to help install the SPM near Kutubdia Island in the Bay of Bengal.
But the estimated cost grew later, when a German firm, ILF Consulting Engineering, carried out a detailed study on the proposed SPM. It re-estimated the project cost at $327 million, said the BPC official.
The IDB also later agreed to increase its funding by 70.54 per cent to $ 220 million from its earlier commitment of $ 129 million.
Later the government could not arrange the additional fund for the SPM project and the IDB also did not increase further its financing for the SPM.
The government, instead, showed interest in negotiation with the China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPPB), a Chinese petroleum firm, for implementing the much-needed SPM project having three pipelines at a cost of around $ 500 million.
It has already received an 'unsolicited' technical offer from the Chinese firm to this effect.
The CPPB, a subsidiary of China's state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), visited the project site near Moheshkhali Island in the Bay of Bengal and found it suitable.
The BPC's wholly-owned subsidiary Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) along with a German international consultant was now reviewing the 'only' technical offer, said a senior ERL official.
The Chinese firm would submit the financial offer on completion of the review.
The BPC chairman said building of the three pipelines along with the SPM would help quicken fuel imports at lower costs.
Carrying crude and refined oil through separate pipelines would be cost-effective compared to carrying both crude and refined oil through a single pipeline, the BPC chairman added.
In the event of a single pipeline it would need to be washed every time before carrying a separate petroleum product, he added.
mazizur.rahman@outlook.com
Three pipelines planned to carry petroleum
M Azizur Rahman | Published: July 10, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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