Hasina, Modi to open Indo- Bangla oil pipeline today
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi is set to formally inaugurate the newly built Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline today through videoconferencing.
The two neighbours have built the 131.57-km cross-border pipeline through which Bangladesh will import petroleum, especially diesel from India, reports UNB.
The Bangladeshi part of the pipeline is 126.57 km long. The remaining 5-km part of the pipeline is in India.
"All necessary works of the pipeline project have been completed and it's now ready for inauguration," said ABM Azad, chairman of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC).
The BPC, the state-run marketing agency of petroleum fuel, has been implementing the project under a government deal with India to annually import 250,000 tonnes to 400,000 tonnes of diesel from the neighbouring country through the pipeline.
Bangladesh needs to import 6.6 million tonnes to 7.7 million tonnes of petroleum to meet its annual demand.
Official documents show that Bangladesh will annually import 250,000 tonnes in the first three years, 300,000 tonnes annually in the 4th to 6th years, 350,000 tonnes annually in the 7th to 10th years and 400,000 tonnes annually from the 11th to 15th year.
Currently, Bangladesh imports 22,000 tonnes of diesel per month through railway wagons.
The BPC chairman said Bangladesh will benefit from such a pipeline in multiple ways.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said this pipeline would help increase fuel supply by 29,000 tonnes in 16 districts of the country's northern region.
The trial commissioning of the project was started on March 13, said officials, reports our Dinajpur correspondent.
"We have already run a successful trial commission of the project," Project Director Tipu Sultan told The Daily Star on Thursday.
The receive terminal in Dinajpur's Parbatipur upazila is ready, he added.
The BPC chairman visited the project sites in Parbatipur and Panchagarh on Thursday.
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