After the latest fuel price hike Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will make a profit of Tk 205 crore per month if dollar price continues with the rate of the month of July. But if the dollar rate goes higher, BPC will incur a loss of Tk 47 crore per month.

The estimate was disclosed by BPC chairman ABM Azad at a press briefing at the organisation’s Dhaka office on Wednesday.

“We have calculated that after the rise in prices, BPC will have an estimated profit of Tk 205 crore per month if dollar price is not raised compared with the price of July”, he told reporters.

He noted that currently BPC’s overall loss is Tk 6 per litre. But it is making a profit of Tk 25 per litre in octane, and about Tk 20 in petrol.   

On the other hand, he said, the BPC is paying a tax of Tk 20.70 per litre in diesel import and Tk 23.5 per litre octane import.  

He also informed that the BPC has a 30 days' consumption equivalent stock of diesel (294,319 metric tons), 19 days stock of octane (22,827 metric tons), 18 days stock of petrol (19,174 mt) and jet fuel of 32 days (35,780 mt).

The government hiked the price of fuel oil by a big margin with effect from August 6.

According to the release, diesel price has been increased by Tk 34 to Tk 114 per litre while octane price hiked by Tk 46 to Tk 135 and petrol by Tk 44 to Tk 130.

Earlier, in November last year, the government increased the price of diesel and kerosene by Tk 15 to Tk 80 per litre. As a result, the bus fare was disproportionately increased by around 27 per cent and the launch fare by 35 per cent.

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The BPC made the recent upward adjustment in the fuel prices when the downward trend continues at the international market.

A document provided by the Centre for Policy Dialogue shows that the price of Brent crude has declined to $93.9 per barrel on August 8 from $100 per barrel on August 1.

 The BPC chairman said that it has cash plus deposits of Tk 19,000 crore which is equivalent to pay import bills for 2 months consumption of fuel.

He also claimed that misleading information is being spread by different quarters about BPC’s deposits and profits and also disagreed with the report that it had made a profit of Tk 48,000 crore in 7 years from 2014-15 to 2020-21 fiscal years.

He said BPC had made a profit of about Tk 42,000 in those years, but half of the profits had to be spent to import at higher prices from the international market.

Responding to a question, he said The BPC made its calculation on the basis of fuel price of July at the international market for which the current downward trend of price of global market was not considered in the price adjustment.