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Tuesday | September 22, 2026 | Dhaka
Fuel Price Impact

BPC incurs Tk 22,875cr loss in six months

 Staff Reporter
 Published: 12:01 AM, 22 September 2026

The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) incurred a loss of Tk 22,875 crore between March and August as domestic fuel prices remained below international market rates, Energy State Minister Anindya Islam Amit said on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference at the Secretariat, Amit said the government had little choice but to raise fuel prices as international costs surged, subsidies mounted and the risk of fuel smuggling increased.

He said diesel would have cost around Tk205 a litre if Bangladesh had fully followed its automatic fuel-pricing mechanism based on international market prices. Instead, the government raised the price to Tk135 from Tk115 a litre, meaning it is still absorbing around Tk70 on every litre of diesel.

“There was no alternative before us. Otherwise, the government would neither want nor choose to make such an unpopular decision,” Amit said, acknowledging the hardship the price increase would cause people.

BPC absorbs Tk3,813cr loss a month
Bangladesh imports around seven million tonnes of fuel annually, including about 4.5 million tonnes of diesel, according to the state minister.

Had diesel continued to be sold at Tk115 a litre despite higher international prices, the annual loss on diesel alone could have reached around Tk40,000 crore, Amit said. Across all petroleum products, the potential annual loss could have risen to around Tk50,000 crore.

The BPC’s six-month loss works out to an average of around Tk3,813 crore a month. Amit said the corporation was able to absorb the losses using funds accumulated during earlier profitable years.

He said the government had deliberately avoided immediately passing international price increases on to consumers in an effort to protect them from sudden price shocks.

“Prices in the international market change every moment. We tried to protect people by not immediately adjusting domestic prices,” he said.

Hormuz disruption adds pressure
Amit described the current situation as more complex than the economic pressures Bangladesh faced during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

He said around 70 percent of Bangladesh’s imported fuel passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a major global energy route that carries around 20 percent of the world’s energy supply.

The minister also said the gap between international and domestic fuel prices had created an incentive for fuel to be smuggled to neighbouring countries, adding further pressure on the government to adjust prices.

Amit said controlling fuel subsidies was also necessary to preserve the government’s ability to finance social protection programmes.

“Continuing to absorb the entire rise in international fuel costs could severely constrain programmes aimed at supporting low-income households, including the government’s planned family-card scheme,” he said.