China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) has put into operation what it calls the first mega sea-land oil storage and transportation facility in Bangladesh.
The facility serves the Eastern Refinery of Bangladesh Petroleum Corp. (BPC) through a pipeline that carries both crude oil and refined petroleum products, CNPC said in a news release.
“Connecting the tank farm and the refinery, the pipeline is a part of the dual-channel Single Point Mooring system built by China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering, a subsidiary of CNPC”, the press release stated. “This marks the launch of Bangladesh's first sea-land integrated super-large oil storage and transportation system”.
CNPC added, “The completion of the project marks the end of oil shipping by barge, shortening the oil unloading and transportation time from 11 days to about 48 hours for 100,000-ton oil tankers, and providing a solid guarantee for expanding ERL's [Eastern Refinery Ltd.] processing capacity from 1.5 MTPA to 4.5 MTPA”.
ERL Deputy General Manager Md Sharif Hasnat was quoted as saying in the CNPC announcement, “This project will have a huge impact on our energy production”.
“In terms of oil unloading, our previous approach was inefficient and costly.
“With the introduction of the sea-land integrated oil storage and transportation system, modern oil transportation facilities will make our energy production more efficient and create more opportunities to expand ERL’s production capacity”.
CNPC noted the project had created nearly 4,000 jobs during construction, as well as “nurtured many outstanding technical talents for the local communities”.
State-owned CNPC called the project a major achievement in the energy cooperation between China and Bangladesh under President Xi Jinping’s global “Belt and Road” infrastructure investment initiative.
It marks a step toward Bangladesh Vision 2041, the company said. The South Asian country’s development roadmap envisions an energy and power industry that meets the demand of a high-income economy, including by “developing the required infrastructure for primary fuel”, as stated in the vision text.
“Additionally, PP2041 [Perspective Plan/Vision 2041] will substantially expand the domestic oil refining capacity and will focus on installing petroleum pipeline throughout the country to ensure quick and easy supply of oil to the demand point along with adequate safety measures to protect the environment”, says Vision 2041.
Earlier a BPC official told S&P Global Commodity Insights that the state-run fuel production and distribution company plans to cut its imports of refined products this year by 15.34 percent to about 6.51 million metric tons. Instead, BPC expects to raise crude imports by 7.14 percent to 1.5 million metric tons.
“According to the BPC official, the company has been importing more crude oil thanks to a newly opened single-point mooring facility that can store a significant volume of the feedstock, before it is processed at the Eastern Refinery in Chattogram, Bangladesh's sole refinery”, S&P said in a report February 16, not naming the official.
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