The fuel oil consumption has decreased by over 24% as continuous blockades and shutdowns have disrupted vehicular movements across the country.
According to Bangladesh Bank data, two million tonnes of the energy was consumed in July-October period of the current fiscal year less than the usual consumption.
“Transport sector has been paralysed by the political turmoil, which caused decline in the demand,” said a senior official at the power and energy ministry.
Diesel could not be transported to the farmers to irrigate Aman and Boro paddy fields on time during the period because of the same reason, the official added.
“Disruption of diesel supply to the growers for powering irrigation pumps was also a cause (for the decreased fuel use.)”
The transport owners said they had been unable to ply their vehicles on the streets because of political violence as the continuous attacks were being perpetrated upon the vehicles.
“We are at a constant risk of facing political violence on the streets and highways. Our loss is huge for last couple of months,” said Rustom Ali, general secretary of Truck-Covered Van Owners Association.
Bangladesh Bank data shows, the import also fell by 24.2% to $1.2m during the four-month period from $1.5m one year earlier.
The suspension of power generation in several diesel-fired plants and the closure of the country’s lone crude oil refiner, the Eastern Refinery Ltd, at that time also pushed down fuel oil consumption, said a high official of energy ministry.
According to energy ministry, the country’s diesel consumption declined almost by 75% to around 3,000 tonnes per day during hartals and blockades. The usual consumption is around 12,000 tonnes per day.
Others like furnace oil, kerosene and jet fuel did not however face that much impact of political unrest, according to official sources, as vehicles are not run by these fuels.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation chairman Md Yunusur Rahman ruled out any fuel oil, including diesel, crisis in the country. “There is no crisis of fuel oil and no crisis of diesel.”
He hoped the vehicular movements would increase on the highways as law enforcers are giving security there.
BPC estimated it would need to import 5.40m tonnes of crude and refined oil in 2014, which is 1.9% higher than that of last year.
For this, it will require an estimated amount of $5bn. Last year, the import costs BPC the same amount.
BPC currently has term deals to import refined oil products from the Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Malaysia’s Petco, Philippine National Oil Company, Emirates National Oil Company, Egypt’s Middle East Oil Refinery, Maldives National Oil Company, PetroChina and Indonesia’s BumiSiakPusako.
The corporation has also deals to import crude oil from Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
