As if taking a clue from the public transports, the petrol pump and tank-lorry owners are now demanding that the government raises commissions on fuel sales and transportation fares following the recent hike in fuel prices. According to sources in the re-fuelling business, the leaders of the Bangladesh Petrol Pump and Tank-Lorry Owners Workers Unity Council, a representative body of the both operators and workers, held a meeting on November 14 to negotiate the demand with the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC). But the meeting ended inconclusively, the sources said. Read: Fuel prices hiked in line with global market: PM “But no concrete decision has come from the meeting as the BPC took time to hold an inter-ministerial meeting to take opinions from the other ministries concerned”, said Nazmul Haque, president of the unity council, also the president of Bangladesh Petrol Pump Owners Association (BPPOA) which also held separate meeting with the BPC on the same issue . He, however, informed that a 12- point demand of the unity council was placed to the BPC. The organisation has been urging the government for long to meet their demands. “But the latest phase of fuel price rise has pushed us into to an unbearable situation,” he told UNB. Read Reduce fuel prices to facilitate economic recovery: BGMEA Nazmul said they will go for action programme to realise their demands if the BPC fails to raise their commissions within a week or two. The government raised the prices of diesel and kerosene to Tk 80 per litre from Tk 65 with effect from November 4 this month.  

A purchase order by the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) to import extra quantities of diesel and furnace oil has put the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) in big trouble. According to official sources, the BPDB placed an extra order to BPC to import 105,800 metric tons of diesels and 101,000 MT of furnace oil for the month of October this year to meet its requirement in the liquid fuel-fired power plants run by private operators as well as by the government. Read:Govt starts feeling pinch of price surge of petroleum on the global market The BPC promptly moved to import the petroleum to avert any crisis in the power generation. “But this emergency import of the two fuel items has ultimately put the BPC in big trouble as the BPDB is not now receiving the extra fuel”, said a top official of the BPC preferring not be named. He noted this extra import of furnace oil and diesel has created an extra burden for the BPC as it has very limited storage capacity. “We had to import the fuel at a higher price and keep the petroleum in the vessel for several days in the sea”, he added.     Sources said the BPC already informed the BPDB through a letter dated October 27 about the trouble with the imported extra fuels. In the letter, the BPC mentioned that the BPDB has received only 25,836 MT of diesel against a purchase order for 105,800 MT and 41,704 MT of furnace oil against a purchase order of 101,000 MT of furnace oil. “If the BPDB does not receive the remaining oils, it would not be possible to further import the petroleum as per requirement”, the letter warned the principal petroleum marketing agency. The BPC also demanded compensation from the BPPB for its demurrage to be paid to the fuel carrying ships. Read: Proposals for LNG, petroleum, wheat import get clearance BPDB (member) generation Ashraful Islam, however, denied the allegation saying that BPDB will receive the extra fuel in second week of December for conducting a test-run into its newly built 330 MW power plants in Khulna. “We will conduct a test run for the new power plant for six days and we will require 67,000 MT of fuel for the operation”, he said. He admitted that in the coming days the requirement of diesel and furnace oil will decline during the coming winter.   

The global price surge in the petroleum fuels is forcing the government to count losses as it has to import both liquid petroleum and liquefied natural gas (LNG) at rates much higher than that was last year.   According to official sources, against the backlash of price surge of petroleum fuels the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is now importing different petroleum products at more than  double the rates than the last year’s. As a result, the BPC has been incurring a loss of over Tk 20 crore per day, said a top official of the prime government petroleum marketing entity. Read: Proposals for LNG, petroleum, wheat import get clearance To offset the loss, the petroleum marketing body is now going to propose the government to allow it to set a price on a monthly basis, said a top official at the BPC. “Soon, we’ll send a proposal to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division to allow the BPC to set the petroleum prices on a monthly basis”, Syed Mehdi Hasan, director (operations & planning), told UNB. Currently, the Energy and Mineral Resources Division sets the fuel price on an occasional basis considering the global market price. According to BPC sources, the refined petroleum fuel, specially, diesel, is now selling as much as at $93 per barrel on the global market this week which was selling at $43 per barrel in October 2020. “We’ve to now buy the diesel from the world market at a price more than double  the price it was selling last year”, said a BPC official working at the commercial & operations department of the organization.     He said if the current rates of petroleum continue or witness a rise, the BPC will have to incur a loss of Tk 7000—Tk 8000 crore in a year.

Eleven years have elapsed since Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) took the “Eastern Refinery Unit-2” project to enhance the country’s petroleum refining capacity, but there has been no headway in its implementation so far. According to official sources, BPC is now evaluating a technical offer of Technip, a French engineering company, which was engaged through an unsolicited process for creating Front End Engineering Design (FEED) involving Tk 371.81 crore for the proposed ERL unit-2 through a contract signed in January, 2017. “We’re now evaluating the technical offer of Technip to meet our compliances to be qualified before calling for a financial offer,” said Syed Mehedi Hasan, director, operation & planning of PPC.  Read: Quick energy supply: Cabinet approves 5-yr extension of special provision “Techmip has placed some 650 observations and we addressed most of them and negotiations are going on to settle the remaining 175 of them. Now we hope we'll be able to settle them within the current month,” he told UNB. The Unit-2 project was taken by BPC in 2010 to enhance the company’s capacity to 4.5 million metric tons by adding 3 million metric tons from the new one. Currently, the Unit-1, installed in 1968 by the same French company, has an annual production capacity of 1.5 million metric tons. Read BPC’s ballooning operations call for augmented manpower  Technip completed the FEED for ERL Unit-2 and then placed it to BPC for negotiations. Once the technical negotiations are completed, the financial offer of the Technip will be opened for the final negotiation to go for a contract, said the BPC director.   State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said he believes the evaluation and negotiations of Tecnip’s technical offer will be concluded within a week or two. “Then the French company will be asked to submit a financial offer for negotiations. If we accept the offer, we’ll proceed to award the contract to Technip,” he told UNB. Read FY21 ADP implementation: Power Division reaches 97.74% target, Energy Division 104.27% The whole process of implementation of the ERL-2 is being done under the Speedy Power and Energy Supply (Special) Act 2010 which allows his ministry to award any contract to any company without competing the bidding process. “We’ve preferred Technip for the project as it has a proven track record,” he said.      

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. Read:Covid-19 to further delay Single Point Mooring (SPM) project in Chattogram 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. Read Bangladesh explores JV agricultural projects with South Africa 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. Read Red tapes are holding back the much-hyped Sundarbans conservation project

The Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase on Wednesday approved 10 procurement proposals including import of 1.235 million mts of petroleum fuel and 3.360 million MMBtu liquified natural gas (LNG) . Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal presided over the Cabinet body meeting. Read: Cabinet body okays proposal to procure 1.5 crore Chinese Sinopharm vaccine According to the meeting decisions,  state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will import 1.234 million mts of petroleum fuel in different packages from Unipec Singapore Pte Ltd. Singapore, Petro China International (Singapore) Pte Ltd., VitoI Asia Pte Ltd., Singapore, and Emirates National Oil Company Pte Ltd, Singapore., at a total cost of Tk 5,774.45 crore (equivalent to about $683.366 million) over the next six months from June-December 2021. The supplier companies were selected through international quotation, said Shamsul Arefin, additional secretary to the Cabinet Division while briefing reporters on the issue.    He, however, did not disclose what will be the premium of the product and which item of petroleum will be imported from the companies.   The Petrobangla and its subordinate body RPGCL will import 3.360 million MMBtu of LNG from Excelerate Energy LP, United States at a contract value of Tk 313.68 crore.  The unit price of the LNG was not disclosed.  Read: Cabinet body clears proposal to purchase 30,000MT urea The Cabinet committee approved a proposal of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) for awarding of a contract for procurement of design, development, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of telecom monitoring system for the telecom networks and systems of Bangladesh from TKC Telecom Inc, Canada at a cost of Tk 77.65 crore. A proposal of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) to procure 3 passenger cruise vessels from Karnaphuli Ship Builders at Tk 231.13 crore received the approval of the committee. The Cabinet body gave nod to a proposal of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority to appoint a service provider at Tk 218.71 crore for collecting fees and taxes  from motor vehicles through online for next five years. However, it was not disclosed which company won the contract for the job. Read:Cabinet body OKs import of 250,000MT rice Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) received the committee’s approval for procuring 30,000 metric tons of bagged granular urea fertiliser from Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company (Kafco) at a value of Tk 87.63 crore. The Cabinet body approved a proposal of the Bangladesh Railway to change 9 points of the PCC (Particular Conditions of Contract) of the Commercial Contract and also its supplementary agreement -2 of the Padma Bridge Rail Connection Project with Chana Railway Group of China (CRÈC). Shamsul Arefin said though the conditions of the contract will be changed, but it will not have any effect on the contract value.

Bangladesh is unlikely to be able to take advantage of the declining oil price in the global market for lack of its additional storage capacity.