M Azizur Rahman

The government has decided to create a deep-sea petroleum unloading facility near Kutubdia, some 60 kilometers off the coast.

The facility, officials said, would help reduce both unloading time and costs substantially for the imported fuel oils and boost efficiency of the state-owned oil companies, officials said Monday.

An under-the-sea pipeline would also be installed to carry the fuels to the coast, said a senior energy ministry official.

Installation of this platform named - single buoy mooring -would facilitate carrying of fuel to the shore through the pipeline, leading to a reduction of transportation time to only three days from the existing 16 days, he said.

Some US$140 million would be required to install the platform and the pipeline, the official said.

The facility, according to an estimate, would help the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) save around $10 per tonne of fuel, he added.

The country currently requires around 3.70 million tonnes of crude and refined petroleum products annually to meet its soaring domestic demand.

The state-owned refinery - the Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) - can refine around 1.5 million tonnes of fuel a year.

Both refined and crude oil could be carried to the shore from the proposed platform, once it is installed, the BPC official said.

"The mother vessels carrying the imported fuel oils would be able to unload at the platform through the pipeline," said BPC Chairman Anwarul Karim.

Piped fuel oils would then be stored in the coastal depots or carried to the refinery from where it would be supplied across the country, he said.

Currently rental lighter vessels carry petroleum to the shore from the mother vessels staying at the outer anchorage.

"We have to pay $5.40 per tonne to the lighter vessels for carrying petroleum to the shore," the BPC chairman said.

The petroleum corporation carries its fuel through the lighter vessels owned by the state-owned Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC).

The BPC has recently carried out a feasibility study and found that setting up of the platform in deep sea would be economically viable.

"We have sought financial assistance from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) through the Economic Relations Division for setting up the platform," said the BPC official.

The IDB has hinted at providing such assistance, he added.

Experts also backed the government plan for setting up the petroleum unloading facility in the deep-sea.

"This platform might help reduction of transportation loss and pilferage of the petroleum products," said Professor M Tamim of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).