Bangladesh is going to import 90,000 tonnes of octane from Malaysia to meet the shortfall caused by the expiry of the deal with the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, said oil sector officials.
The state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation will get the octane from Malaysia ’s Petronas Corporation during the 8-month period from May to December this year to meet the country’s requirement, they added.
A ship carrying the first consignment of 6,000 tonnes of octane from Malaysia is scheduled to reach Chittagong Port on May 18 and another consignment of 10,000 tonnes will come next month, they added.
‘Every month we will get regular supply of octane from Petronas Corporation with which we have recently struck a deal,’ said the director (operation) of BPC, Mozammel Huq.
‘We signed the deal with Petronas after obtaining the approval of the purchase committee of the government and energy ministry,’ he said. ‘Now there is no chance of shortage of octane in the country.’
‘As the deal with KPC was not renewed, we reached an agreement with Petronas to get an alternative source of octane,’ he added.
Sources inside BPC said that the stock of octane, imported earlier, has shrunk to 4,800 tonnes only.
The daily consumption of octane in the country ranges from 300 to 350 tonnes, according to sources.
Another official of the BPC said that octane was imported only to be used by cars and SUVs. Its consumption has declined after the engines of many vehicles were converted to be run on natural gas.
Now the yearly consumption of octane in the country has declined to 1,20,000 from around 2,00,000 tonnes recorded three years back, he said.
The BPC annually imports 3.8 million tonnes of petroleum fuels and the KPC has so far been its major supplier, officials said. But the BPC is looking for alternative sources of fuel to reduce its dependence on the KPC, they added.

 

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