The government has constructed Single Point Mooring (SPM) Terminals to make the import of fuel oil easy and time-saving. The cost of the project increased more than seven times due to protracted formulation and delayed implementation. However, no final decision has been made yet on when the construction of the second unit of the supplementary project Eastern Refinery (ERL) will start and who will build it. That means, after the importation, the oil refining infrastructure project has been implemented but the construction of the oil refining infrastructure has not started. As a result, there is a fear that half of the capacity of the Tk 7 thousand 124 crore project will remain idle for half a century, according to a report of a national daily.
A top official of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) told the media that the back linkage or supplementary project of the second unit of ERL is Single Point Mooring (SPM). The crude oil or unrefined oil, and refined diesel imported by ships from abroad will be released through the pipeline from this point in the Bay of Bengal. Diesel purification using SPM was started experimentally for the first time last December. On March 16, more than 40,000 tons of crude oil was supplied to the storage tank of the Eastern Refinery (ERL) in Chattogram from the SPM installed in the deep sea at first to the Maheshkhali pumping station. However, due to a lack of increase in refining capacity, BPC is not starting large-scale crude oil import using SPM right now.
He said that the decision to construct the ERL Second Unit and SPM was taken almost at the same time. However, due to financing complications and indecisiveness, its construction has not yet started. Even who will build it has not been decided yet. Once it was decided to implement it with the financing of a foreign company. Later it was decided to build with BPC financing. That's why BPC keeps a large amount of money in a separate account in the bank. Now that decision has also changed. Recently, the private industrial company S Alam Group has written to the Ministry of Finance showing interest in financing the construction of ERL-2. But BPC has already spent about 1000 crores on the preparation work of ERL-2. Now the decision to build the refinery is final but it will take five to six years to come into operation. That is, half of the SPM's capacity will remain unused during this long period.
According to the sources of the Energy Department, the plan for the construction of single-point mooring with a double pipeline was accepted in 2010. It was then decided that Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) and Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) would implement the project. In 2010, a project titled Installation of Single Mooring (SPM) was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC). At that time the expenditure was estimated at Tk 954 crore 28 lakh. According to the revised DPP, the cost of construction of the project will be Tk 4 thousand 935 crore 97 lakh. The cost of the latest project exceeded TK 7 thousand crores.
SPM Project Director Md Sharif Hasnat said that two separate pipelines have been created in the SPM project. One can supply 45 lakh tonnes of refined fuel oil and the other 45 lakh tonnes of crude oil per year. Now, even if the pipeline is fully operational by supplying refined fuel oil, 45 lakh tonnes of crude fuel oil cannot be imported. Because, there is no purification capacity. He said, that till the implementation of the second unit of ERL, efforts will be made to raise the investment of the pipeline project by importing more refined fuel oil.
ZH
