60,000 tonnes of Indian diesel to be imported in 2020

The government is all set to bring 60,000 tonnes of diesel at a cost of Tk 314.3 crore from India to meet its domestic demand for 2020.

Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has been importing the gas oil through rail wagons to its Parbatipur depot from India’s state-owned Numaligarh Refinery since October 2017.

The cabinet committee on government purchase yesterday gave the go-ahead to the purchase.

Also at yesterday’s meeting, another decision was also taken to import 31.1 tonnes of refined fuel oil from six state-owned foreign companies at a cost of Tk 5,142.51 crore under the government-to-government arrangement.

Of it, 10.3 lakh tonnes will arrive in Bangladesh in the first six months of the year, while the remaining 20.9 lakh tonnes more will be brought over the later six months.

BPC, the state-owned petroleum importer, will buy the oils from China’s Petrochina and Unipec, Thailand’s PTT Public Company, Indonesia’s BSP Zapin, UAE’s Emirates National Oil Company and Malaysia’s Petco Trading Labuan Company.

The cabinet committee also approved another project to run different development work inside Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhia and Tekhnaf and to provide community services to 60,000 youths of the state-less minority group.

The disaster management and relief ministry will implement the Tk 297.15 crore project. However, the “Emergency multi-sector Rohingya crisis response” project was earlier scheduled to start in September 2018 and end in August 2021 at a cost of Tk 337.89 crore.