State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will probably need to pay an additional $800 million to $1 billion this fiscal for costly fuel imports due to soaring fuel prices in the international market and fluctuations in dollar rate.
Besides, additional import of liquid fuel due to scarcity of gas has swelled the import bills, BPC Chairman ABM Azad told.
“We have to spend around $4 billion to procure 6.5 million tonnes of fuel including local production through refineries,” ABM Azad said.
The spending will exceed $5 with an additional $800 million to $1 billion in the current fiscal year, the BPC chairman said.
He added the BPC made a profit of over Tk 2 billion in August after the adjustment in the fuel tariff.
“But we faced an overall loss of Tk 4.07 billion as diesel price soared again in the international market,” he said.
“Our loss on diesel only reached Tk 7.14 billion in September,” he added.
But the loss has been mitigated slightly due to the price adjustment on other fuel products, he clarified.
The OPEC+ is considering cutting its supply, he said, adding, “If this happens, the loss will soar further this month due to a rise in diesel tariff.”
Bangladesh consumes around 4.8 million tonnes of diesel, mostly depending on imports.
The BPC chairman said they paid an additional Tk 11-12 to Tk 107 against every dollar for paying its fuel import bills in September.
Despite that, the BPC supplied an additional volume of fuel to Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) to feed the power plants due to the gas crisis. It has also raised the cost for BPC, the chairman said.
BPDB’s diesel requirement was 154,302 tonnes in August this year, which was 96.30 percent higher compared to the same period of 2021. At the same time, the furnace oil requirement was 107,400 metric tonnes for electricity generation, which was also 80.73 percent higher compared to the same period in 2021.
“The natural gas supply to power plants came down to 900mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) from 1100mmcfd previously. It caused a significant drop in electricity production from gas-based power plants,” State minister for power and energy Nasrul Hamid said earlier.