Chinese firm to install pipeline at deep sea for Eastern Refinery

The proposal for appointing China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau is likely to placed at the meeting of the cabinet committee on economic affairs today. The firm will construct a pipeline in the Bay of Bengal for unloading fuel from tankers in the deep sea to storage facilities on mainland. If installed, the pipeline will save the government Tk1,000 crore annually, officials said. The Chinese government has agreed to fund 79% of the cost on condition that a Chinese company implements the project under G2G basis. According to the proposal, of total cost of Tk5,426.26 crore, an amount of Tk1,021.19 crore will be borne by the Bangladesh government. As per the project proposal, the single-point mooring installation is going to be built on Sonadia island area in deep sea where the large oil tankers will anchor. As per the latest project design, two large 36-inch pipelines would be built there to pump the oil to a storage facility 16km away on the Matarbari island in Maheshkhali. One pipeline would pump crude oil and the other diesel. The length of each of the pipelines would be 110km. According to the project proposal, there would be six tanks in Maheshkhali. At present,  large tankers anchor in deep sea and smaller ships unload and bring the oil to storage facilities of ERL in Chittagong. This process called lightering is an expensive operation and it takes 11 days to unload 1 lakh tonnes of oil. Other than time and cost, a lot of oil is systematically stolen during the process, officials said.