Government and BPC to set up second unit with own funds
Chattagram Bureau:
The government and Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will jointly set up the second unit of the Eastern Refinery. The project cost has increased by more than 6,000 crore taka due to long-term waiting for foreign loans.
The cost of the project has increased more than threefold in the last 15 years. Thus, without wasting any more time, the government and BPC have decided to jointly start the work on the project with their own funds.
The total cost will be 42,973 crore taka. Of this, the government will provide 30,499 crore taka, while BPC will provide the remaining 12,473 crore taka. The second unit of the Eastern Refinery is being built keeping in mind various benefits including ensuring the security of the country’s energy sector, reducing the cost of importing fuel oil, saving foreign exchange, and employment. The concerned officials said that the current demand for fuel oil in the country is more than 7 million tons.
The project cost has increased by 6,600 crore taka in 8 months due to waiting for foreign loans. Eastern Refinery can refine a maximum of 1.5 million tons of fuel oil per year. All the remaining oil has to be imported from abroad in a refined state. The price of refined oil is quite high compared to crude oil.
This is causing a lot of foreign exchange to flow abroad. If the refining capacity of the country could be increased by importing crude oil, a lot of foreign exchange would be saved along with energy security. The project has been included in the Annual Development Program (ADP) for the fiscal year 2025-26 and implemented with the government and BPC’s own funding.
If the ERL-2 project is implemented, the country’s refining capacity will increase to 4.5 million tons. This will reduce import dependence, reduce transportation costs and product prices, and enable the production of environmentally friendly fuel of Euro-5 standards.
As a result, this project will play an important role in the country’s energy security and environmental protection.
It is worth noting that the Eastern Refinery refines imported crude oil and produces 17 types of petroleum products including petrol, octane, diesel, bitumen, LPG, jet fuel.