French firm to finalise design for second oil refinery next month

FT ONLINE

French oil and gas sector management company Technip would finalise design for building the country's second crude oil refinery next month, a senior official said on Saturday.

Technip had submitted a draft of the final design of the refinery to the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) in March last.

The design is currently being reviewed.

The new crude oil refinery would have the capacity to refine 3.0 million tonnes a year of crude oil, double the pace the country's existing refinery can accomplish.

The detailed engineering plan and cost estimation over the refinery project could be done on the basis of final front-end engineering and design (FEED) by Technip.

Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL), the BPC's wholly-owned subsidiary, will implement the new project.

Last year, the BPC assigned Technip to carry out the FEED work of the proposed refinery at a cost of Tk 2.57 billion (US$ 32.10 million).

Indian consulting firm Engineers India Limited (EIL) has been acting as the project management consultant (PMC) to implement the second unit of Eastern Refinery, he said.

In November, 2016, the BPC had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU), with Technip in Dhaka over building the new refinery.

Once implemented, the new refinery would help the country save US$ 220 million a year, said the BPC official.

Separately, the corporation has moved to build a new 7.50 million tonne annual capacity crude oil refinery near Payra port in southern Bangladesh to cater to the bulging oil demand.

The corporation has also started work to build a single point mooring (SPM) system, jetty and storage facility centring the refinery.

Bangladesh would be implementing the projects under Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provision) Act, 2010 bypassing tender procedure, the BPC official said.

Currently the country imports around 6.0 million tonnes of crude and refined petroleum products combined every year to meet the local demand.

The BPC has already purchased land from the ministry of Industries at Tk 2.30 billion for the new Chittagong refinery.

The project might enable the country to process any kind of crude oil and it might put Bangladesh on the path to becoming a refined petroleum products- exporting country, said the BPC official.

Nepal has already shown interest to import refined petroleum products from Bangladesh and agreed to ink an MoU in this connection, he said.

The surplus finished petroleum products can also be exported to Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Myanmar and the north eastern parts of India.