India to Supply Diesel Worth Tk 1,000 Crore After Rice, Potatoes, and Eggs

News Desk

The government has approved the purchase of fuel oil worth Tk 11,479 crore from 8 companies in 7 countries, but the final decision to import diesel from India has been made. After rice, eggs, and potatoes, now diesel for agricultural use is being imported from India.

The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has decided to import 130,000 metric tons of diesel from India’s Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) at a cost of Tk 1,137 crore. The decision was finalized during the 1000th meeting of BPC’s board of directors last Sunday. The diesel will be imported between January and December of this year.

BPC Chairman Aminul Ahsan told Prothom Alo that the demand for refined fuel this year is expected to be 7.4 million metric tons, of which 4.6 million metric tons will be diesel. Eighty percent of this diesel will be directly imported, with the remainder coming from local refineries.

BPC regularly imports refined oil from Numaligarh Refinery Limited, which has been arriving by train since January 2016. This year, the Bangladesh-India Friendship Pipeline has been built to increase the import volume, which transports oil from Numaligarh to Parbatipur in Dinajpur. Last year, 70,055 metric tons of diesel were imported from India.

In addition, Bangladesh will import over 1.4 million tons of refined fuel oil from 8 companies in 7 countries, including India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the UAE, and Oman, between January and June of this year. The total cost for this fuel import will be Tk 11,479 crore. The Economic Affairs Advisory Committee gave policy approval for this import in a meeting held on October 24 last year.

BPC sources have indicated that the imports will include 880,000 tons of gas oil, 190,000 tons of jet A-1, 75,000 tons of mogas, 250,000 tons of furnace oil, and 30,000 tons of marine fuel.

Thus, the government is undertaking a large-scale plan to meet the country’s energy demand through diversified imports for the current year.