After a long wait, crude oil transportation is starting from Kutubdia through the pipeline marking a significant milestone in Bangladesh’s energy infrastructure.
Crude oil transportation will start from Kutubdia to the Eastern Refinery in Patenga on February 29 for the first time. This program is being started with the aim of saving crores of taka in fuel oil clearance under the ‘Installation of Single Point Mooring (SPM) with Double Pipeline’ project implemented in the deep Bay of Bengal.
Although some mechanical problems were detected in the beginning, everything went well. Crude oil and diesel discharged experimentally from two vessels anchored in the deep sea will be brought to Patenga Eastern Refinery. This activity started about four months after the inauguration.
According to sources, the government implemented a project titled ‘Installation of Single Point Mooring with Double Pipeline’ at a cost of more than 5000 crore taka to release fuel oil from the mother vessel anchored in the deep sea through the pipeline without Lighterage.
A ‘single point mooring’ was constructed in the deep sea near Kutubdia in Cox’s Bazar. A total of 220 km double pipeline is laid from there to the Eastern Refinery, both offshore and onshore. This includes a 146 km offshore pipeline and a 74 km onshore pipeline. In addition to the pipeline under the project, 1 lakh 25 thousand tons of crude oil
and 83 thousand tons of diesel storage tanks were constructed in Maheshkhali.
Crude oil and diesel imported from abroad are stored in those two tanks and from there, according to the need, crude oil is sent to the Eastern Refinery through a pipeline to the main depot of Patenga Guptakhal of Padma Oil Company, Jamuna Oil Company and Meghna Petroleum.
China Petroleum and Engineering Company is working on this project under the supervision of a specialist organization in Germany. Previously, an initiative was taken to release fuel oil from the deep sea in July of last year; But when the release of crude oil started, it was no longer possible due to several errors in the project including the pipeline.
After removing the error on December 1, the ship carrying 82 thousand tons of crude oil imported from Saudi Arabia was berthed at the floating jetty (SPM) installed in the Bay of Bengal. A day after the vessel discharged crude oil, another vessel discharged 60,000 tons of diesel.
Crude oil and diesel were stored there. They could not be brought to the Eastern Refinery due to minor complications in the pipeline.
All errors have already been fixed. The tests have also been completed. Finally, on crude oil will start coming from the Kutubdia tank to the Eastern Refinery through the pipeline on February 29. Eastern Refinery will produce fuel oil by refining these crude oils and providing them to the respective marketing companies. The diesel will be supplied directly to three oil marketing companies.
According to BPC sources, fuel oil will reach Patenga from Kutubdia in a short time. This will save both time and money. At least 800 crore taka will be saved annually. Through the implementation of this project, the previous concept of transportation of fuel and oil will be improved to the world standard. For years oil was transported by Lighterage from mother vessels moored at outer anchorage. Now that cost will be completely saved. It used to take 15 days to discharge oil from a ship, now it will come down to 36-48 hours.
Engineer Mohammad Lokman, Managing Director of Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL), said that after the implementation of the project, fuel oil will be transported in the pipeline for the first time.
He also expressed the opinion that it will bring a revolutionary change in the country’s energy sector. According to design planning, 30 thousand metric tons of diesel can arrive on February 29 and 60 thousand metric tons of crude oil on March 9.