Dhaka Bank raises Tk 900cr for Bashundhara Oil

Dhaka Bank Ltd has arranged a syndicated loan of Tk 900 crore for Bashundhara Oil and Gas Company Ltd (BOGCL) to help it set up a plant to refine crude petroleum products. 

Other lenders are Southeast Bank, Social Islami Bank, NRB Bank, South Bangla Agriculture & Commerce Bank, and Saudi-Bangladesh Industrial and Agricultural Investment Company (Sabinco).

The annual refining capacity of the plant, located in Keraniganj of Dhaka, is 17 lakh tonnes.

The plant will mainly produce bitumen by refining crude oil. In addition, diesel, furnace oil and naphtha will be produced.

The financial closure ceremony of the syndicated term loan was held at a local hotel in the capital on October 12.

Emranul Huq, managing director of Dhaka Bank, M Kamal Hossain, MD of Southeast Bank, Zafar Alam, MD of Social Islami Bank, Mamoon Mahmood Shah, MD of NRB Bank, Habibur Rahman, MD (current charge) of SBAC Bank, and Ahmed Ehsanul Karim, MD of Sabinco, attended the programme.

Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, chairman of Bashundhara Group, and Sayem Sobhan Anvir, managing director of BOGCL, were also present.

According to Emranul Huq, BOGCL has already started production by setting up Unit 1 of the plant. The unit has a production capacity of five lakh tonnes.

Unit 2 will go into production by December, he said.

"The products that will be manufactured by the company are completely import-substitution. So, the country's foreign exchange reserves will benefit from the investment."