Bangladesh is reaching another milestone in fuel oil transportation. Fuel oil will be supplied from Chattogram to Dhaka through the pipeline. If everything goes well, fuel oil will be transported from Chattogram to Dhaka in December. Earlier, the pipeline from Maheshkhali in Cox's Bazar to Chattogram was installed.
Director of Oil Transport Project, 24 Engineering Construction Brigade (ECB) Col. Jahangir Hossain said, “Under the project, 250-km pipeline from Chattogram to Fatulla in Dhaka has already been completed. The work was completed in February. Now only the work on installation of equipment at various stations constructed under the project is incomplete. These will be completed by September. After the commissioning of the pipeline in October, fuel oil transportation from Chattogram through the pipeline will start in December.”
According to Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), currently the demand for fuel oil in the country is 5.8 million metric tonnes. Among these, the demand of the capital Dhaka and its surrounding areas is 1.5 million metric tonnes. The demand for diesel alone is 1.2 million metric tonnes. Until now, a large amount of this fuel oil was transported by road and sea in tankers. But sometimes oil transportation was hampered. Sometimes oil tankers meet with accidents and oil spills into
the river causing damage to the environment. BPC took the initiative to transport fuel oil by pipeline from Guptakhal in Patenga to Fatulla in Dhaka in 2016 for smooth, uninterrupted and fast transport of fuel oil.
The project was approved at the ECNEC meeting in October that year. Then on December 14, 2017, the government took a decision to implement the project through the army under the supervision of Padma Oil Company.
Engineering Construction Brigade is implementing the project on behalf of Padma Oil Company. At that time, the project was supposed to be completed by June 30, 2020, but it was not possible. Already 85 percent of the project has been completed. The work of the project may be completed before December 2024.
Project Director Md. Aminul Haque said after importing fuel oil from different countries, oil will first reach Maheshkhali Kalamarchhara Reserve Tank thru the pipeline. From there, oil will be brought to Eastern Refinery in Patenga area of Chattogram city through the pipeline installed under the same project. After importing oil by large ships from different Middle East countries, it is supplied to different parts of the country by small oil tankers.
Aminul Haque said that out of the 250-km pipeline, the 241.28-km pipeline from Chattogram to Narayanganj's Godnail and the 8.29-km pipeline from Godnail to Narayanganj's Fatulla were completed last February. Apart from this, the work of setting up of five SV stations, one each in Sitakunda of Chattogram, Gopinathpur of Mirsharai upazila, Ratandia of Chouddagram, Kachua of Chandpur and Hossaindi of Munshiganj is at the final stage. A dispatch terminal, an intermediate picking terminal and receive terminal are being constructed under the project. A petroleum depot with a capacity of 21 thousand metric tonnes is being constructed in Cumilla. The work is almost complete.
He also said, “If the pipeline installation from Chattogram to Dhaka is completed, there will be a radical change in the transportation of fuel and oil in the country. Both time and money will be saved.”
