The Crime Desk: Transportation of fuel oil from the storage tank in Maheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar to Patenga in Chittagong has started. It took 30 hours for oil to reach Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) from Maheshkhali. On February 29, the pump started from the storage tank terminal at Maheshkhali at 8 a.m. through the pipeline.
The oil reached the Eastern Refinery’s 40,000-ton tank terminal at 12:30 p.m. on Friday. Under the Single Point Mooring (SPM) project, 40,000 metric tons of diesel are being brought from Maheshkhali on a trial basis. Then the pipeline will be tested similarly with crude oil. If successful, this project will be launched later.
Those concerned said that at present, it takes at least 11 to 20 days to release oil from a ship through lightering. This work will be completed in just two days through the pipeline. This will save both time and money. 800 crore rupees will be saved in the energy sector every year if the pipeline oil supply starts in full swing. Through this, Bangladesh will enter a new era in energy management.
In this context, the managing director of Eastern Refinery Limited, Lokman, told the media that fuel oil has been taken to our refinery using SPM since Thursday. Under this project, two pipelines have been laid through the seabed. Through these two pipes, oil will be brought directly to the refinery from the big ships stationed in the Qutubdia channel of Maheshkhali. Henceforth, lighterage from mother-well tankers need not be brought to refineries by ships. As a result, the time to bring the fuel to the refinery will be reduced, and the cost will also be reduced.
It is to be noted that on June 26 last year, the trial operation of oil discharge from the ship through the pipeline using the SPM installed in the deep sea near Maheshkhali was scheduled to start, but it was delayed due to adverse weather conditions. On July 3, last year, the experimental work of transporting oil from a vessel called MT Hore through a pipeline to a tank installed at Kalamar in Maheshkhali began.
After five days of this, a technical fault occurred, delaying the direct oil transportation operation in the pipeline. After fixing the error, 83 thousand tons of crude oil were taken from the ship on December 3, and 60 thousand tons of diesel were taken to the storage tank of Maheshkhali through the pipeline on December 3 using specialized buoys.
