Costly Mongla jetty still without tankers
A jetty built at the Mongla Oil Installation to facilitate fuel supply to several districts in Bangladesh’s south-western region has remained unused since its completion, raising questions about project planning and feasibility.
The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) constructed the installation at a cost of Tk 205 crore to improve fuel distribution in the region. As part of the project, a jetty was built so that imported oil tankers could berth directly and unload fuel. However, since the facility was completed, not a single imported oil vessel has used the jetty.
Although the installation began supplying fuel in 2019, the jetty and much of the associated infrastructure remain largely idle. Most of the storage tanks also remain empty for significant periods of the year.
Sources say the navigability problem in the Pashur River, where the installation is located, has been known for many years. Critics argue that an adequate feasibility study was not conducted before constructing a jetty intended for imported oil tankers despite the river’s depth limitations.
According to officials, BPC took up the Mongla Oil Installation project in 2014 and completed construction in 2019. Fuel operations began in May of that year.
The facility was designed to enable imported fuel tankers to unload directly at the depot. After the main oil installation at Patenga on the Karnaphuli River in Chattogram, the Mongla facility was intended to become the country’s second point capable of handling imported oil vessels.
The project cost Tk 205.46 crore. The installation has the capacity to store up to 100,000 tonnes of fuel and includes 14 storage tanks. One tank is designated for furnace oil, while the remaining 13 are used by state-run oil marketing companies. Padma Oil uses five tanks, while Meghna and Jamuna Oil each operate four tanks each.
However, most of the tanks remain underutilised, with usage generally not exceeding 20 to 25 per cent.
A visit to the site shows that the Mongla Oil Installation stands beside Mongla Port along the Pashur River. Due to insufficient dredging, large oil tankers are unable to enter the river channel. As a result, the modern facilities constructed at the installation cannot be fully utilised, and the storage tanks cannot be used regularly for large-scale fuel storage.
Prabir Hira, manager of the Mongla Oil Installation and a member of the project implementation team, said the facility was established to ensure uninterrupted fuel supply to Khulna and surrounding areas.
“Fuel from this installation is supplied to dealers, distributors and petrol stations in the region,” he said. He added that the depot has modern facilities, including fire-fighting systems.
Currently, diesel and furnace oil are transported to the depot by lighter vessels from the main oil installation in Chattogram.
However, large imported oil tankers have not been able to operate at the jetty because of the navigational constraints of the Pashur River.
Energy expert M ShamsulAlam said the situation reflects broader planning weaknesses in the country’s energy sector.
“Many projects in the energy sector have not been properly planned. For energy security, Bangladesh should have expanded its petroleum storage capacity earlier. Instead, a depot has been built at Mongla that cannot be fully utilised,” he said.
He added that the continued non-use of the jetty raises legitimate questions about whether the feasibility study had been conducted properly.
A recently retired BPC director (operations) also acknowledged that the jetty at the Mongla installation is not currently being used. He said the main problem is the limited depth of the Pashur River, which prevents imported oil tankers from berthing at the jetty. However, he declined to comment on whether there had been any shortcomings in the feasibility study conducted before the project was undertaken.
