The country’s system of importing fuel oil will enter a new dimension this year that will save time and huge amounts of money.
The offloading of fuel oil from mother vessels will be done through Single Point Mooring (SPM) which will save at least Tk 800 crore per annum.
This SPM will make the country's energy management system more economical, sustainable and environment friendly.
"The SPM project will be commissioned by this year as 95 per cent of its works have already been completed. Separate test runs of the project have already been done to this end," project officer Monjed Ali Shanto told reporters on Thursday.
While briefing reporters at the project site, he said that it will take only 48 hours to transfer the imported petroleum from the mother vessel to storage tanks.
Currently, it takes 11 to 12 days by following offloading through lighterage ships, which is very time-consuming, expensive, and risky.
No lighterage would be required to carry fuel from the mother vessel, which is now moored at the outer quay, after the implementation of the project, he said.
The SPM was built on over 90 acres of land under a G2G project of Bangladesh and China at a cost of Tk 8341 crore at Maheshkhali Upazila in Cox's Bazar.
"Once the SPM goes into operation, around Tk 800 crore will be saved annually by cutting the carrying cost of petroleum products from outer anchorage to fuel tanks,” Monjed said.
Officials said that there are three tanks having a storage capacity of 1.80 lakh kilolitre crude oils and three tanks with 1.08 lakh kilolitre furnished oil.
A 15-kilometre-long pipeline has already been installed from land up to deep sea to directly unload imported petroleum oil to the SPM, which has the capacity of unloading 9 million tonnes every year.
A 120-kilometre pipeline was also built from the SPM project to Eastern Refinery Limited (EFL) to treat the crude oil.
The SPM also has a storage capacity of 45,000 tonnes of crude oil.
As part of the project work, approximately 135 kilometres (km) of offshore pipeline and 58 km of onshore pipeline have already been installed.
During a visit to the project site, the UNB correspondent found the SPM project is almost completed as the six storage tanks have already been completed.
Of the six, three tanks will be able to store crude oil with 60,000 kilolitre capacity each and the rest be able to store diesel with 36,000 kilolitres each.
The Netherlands-based Blue Water completed the construction of SPM 'Boya' which is awaiting shipment to the project site.
The China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co Ltd is currently building the country's maiden SPM system.
The BPC currently pays $5.50 per tonne to lighterage or small vessels, owned mainly by the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, to ferry petroleum to its onshore tanks from larger mother vessels. The SPM will save the cost of the BPC.
Bangladesh annually imports around 6 million tonnes of crude and refined oil. Of that, 1.3 million tonnes are crude oil and refined petroleum products the remaining.
According to the officials, a 36-inch-wide pipeline from the mooring point carries the crude oil to the tank at Kalamarchara in Matarbari.
Later, the oil is taken to the Eastern Refinery in Patenga, Chittagong, 220 kilometres away, through an 18-inch wide pipe.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to inaugurate the SPM project in August.
The 110km pipeline was built between a deep-sea mooring point and the Eastern Refinery Ltd in Patenga.
