Already nearly two years behind schedule, Bangladesh's ambitious Single Point Mooring (SPM) project in Chittagong is likely to miss yet another deadline.

One of this country's top priority infrastructure programmes, the SPM project is aimed at offloading imported crude oil at reduced cost and time. Initially chasing a December 2019 deadline, the project's latest timeline extension came in July last year.

However, highly placed sources told UNB that even the revised June 2022 deadline for the project may be pushed by a couple of months -- till August next year, at least -- due to labour shortage in the wake of Covid-19 and the consequent lockdown.

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In fact, some 200 Chinese workers who were supposed to come to Bangladesh for the project, have been stuck in their home country since the outbreak of Covid in December 2019, the sources said.

“The Chinese contractor executing the SPM project on behalf of the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has sought another deadline extension," said an official of Eastern Refinery Limited, a subsidiary of BPC.

"We have forwarded the request to the higher authorities. Some 65 percent of work at the site is complete, but we will need another year (till August) to make the SPM project operational," said the official, who did not wish to be named.

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When contacted, the managing director of ERL, Lokman Hossain, admitted the project’s current status but was quick to attribute the delay to Covid-19.

"Though the laying of submarine pipelines has been completed, the SPM floating buoy is yet to reach the country. We hope it will arrive here by November this year.  Six oil tanks at Maheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar also have to be installed," he said. 

The SPM project was undertaken by BPC in 2012 to transport imported crude oil to the state-owned Eastern Refinery plant in Chittagong in order to reduce the transportation cost of crude oil fuel and also ensure prompt unloading from deep sea vessels.

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After a number of feasibility studies and prolonged official processes, the government signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract in December 2016 with China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPP).

The foreign firm was supposed to build the facilities within 36 months (three years) at a cost of $550.40 million. But the project started facing delays with the outbreak of coronavirus in China in December 2019.

“As a result, our overall work had slowed down at the project site, and we could not progress much as per our original plan”, Sharif Hasnat, BPC's project director for SPM, told UNB.

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SPM was one of the top priority projects of the Energy Division as the project would substantially save the cost of fuel transportation.

At present, large vessels carrying crude oil are anchored in the deep sea and BPC uses some lighterage vessels to transport the imports to Eastern Refinery plant in Chittagong.

Under the SPM project, a total of 220km pipeline will be installed in the offshore and onshore areas to transport the imported crude and refined oil.

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According to officials, the SPM project will have supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) & communication system and include the construction of three crude oil tanks (each of net capacity 50,000 m³) and three HSD tanks (of capacity 30,000 m³).

However, State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid said that the work at the project site "is going on in full swing". "There were some procedural delays in the contractor's payment system."

"Once the project is implemented, it will save Tk1,000 crore a year as there will be no need to use lighterage vessels to transport the imported crude oil. The SPM project could be effectively used by the private sector oil importers as well," the Minister added.

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BPC officials said the project is being implemented with Chinese financial support.

Of the total project cost of Tk 5426.26 crore, Chinese Exim Bank will finance Tk 4293.12 crore and the Bangladesh government will provide Tk 1021.19 crore. The remaining Tk111.95 will be borne by BPC, the officials said.

ERL currently refines 1.5 million tonnes of crude petroleum annually. On completion of unit-2, its capacity will increase to 4.5 million tonnes. The SPM will have an annual unloading capacity of 9 million. It will be able to unload 120,000 tonnes of crude oil in 48 hours and 70,000 tonnes of diesel in 28 hours.

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