AppId is over the quota
M Azizur Rahman
The government will be required to import 3.65 million tonnes of diesel at an estimated cost of Tk 252 billion (US$ 3.40 billion) in 2012, up by 17.74 per cent from the current year's 3.10 million tonnes, a senior energy ministry official said Friday.
The State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has projected the cost of diesel imports for 2012 calculating per barrel diesel import price at $ 125, he said.
Cash-strapped BPC had imported only 2.60 million tonnes of diesel in 2010, said a senior BPC official.
He said country's overall diesel requirement will be 4.0 million tonnes in 2012 of which 350,000 tonnes will be available as refined output from the state-run refinery - Eastern Refinery Ltd.
Officials said the BPC has been importing an increasing quantity of liquid fuel to meet the mounting local demands especially in new diesel and furnace oil-fired power plants.
The government has been installing dozens of diesel and furnace oil-fired power plants to diversify the country's fuel sources for electricity generation.
The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) officials said seven new diesel-fired power plants came into operation until September 2011.
Several more will start operation from early 2012, they said.
The current diesel requirement in power plants is around 40,000 tonnes per month and from February 2012 the monthly diesel requirement for such plants will be 60,000 tonnes as a few more diesel-fired power plants will start operation by then, they said.
The BPC will seek additional diesel from the existing fuel suppliers that include Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, Petco, the trading arm of Malaysia's Petronas, Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), Emirates National Oil Company of UAE, Egyptian Middle East Oil Refinery, Maldives National Oil Company and Chinese PetroChina.
The corporation is likely to complete negotiations with suppliers within this month to import additional diesel and fix premium rates for January to July imports of 2012, said the BPC official.
He said the BPC will also seek additional funds from the current financiers to foot petroleum import bills.
Currently, the BPC has been borrowing $ 1.45 billion from the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), the lending arm of the Islamic Development Bank Group, for 2011.
It has also finalised a deferred payment scheme worth $ 775 million for its refined oil product purchases from the Petco and the PNOC for the period from October 2011 to March 2012.
The corporation has also received a syndicated loan of $ 200 million from foreign banks and financial institutions recently under a syndication loan led by Standard Chartered, HSBC and Citibank.
Source: thefinancialexpress-bd.com
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