In a groundbreaking initiative, fuel oil has been successfully transferred from large tankers into the deep sea through underwater pipelines. The trial started seven days after a large ship from Saudi Arabia, named ‘MT Horae’ reached the Bay of Bengal, carrying some 82,000 tonnes of crude oil.
“The oil tanker anchored in deep sea near Maheshkhali on 25 June. The trial was supposed to be done on the next day, but it was postponed due to adverse weather conditions. The trial and commissioning have finally kicked off today,” Engineer Md. Sharif Hasnat, director of the Single Point Mooring project, told media.
“The MT Horea is the largest ship in the history of Bangladesh. The ship’s 82,000 tonnes of crude oil is piped from the deep sea to Patenga. It has never happened in the country before,” said Rear Admiral M Sohail, Chairman of the Chittagong Port Authority, which is providing comprehensive support to the SPM project.
He also told that the project would bring a great change in imported petroleum product transportation and distribution.
The Tk8,341-crore Single Point Mooring (SPM) project is expected to save around Tk800 crore annually by cutting time and costs in imported oil transportation.
A total of 220km of pipelines- 146km offshore and 74km onshore– have been installed under the project. The offshore pipelines will carry the petroleum oil from the mother vessel to a shore tank set up in the Kalamarchara area of Moheshkhali. The onshore pipelines will later carry it to the state-run Eastern Refinery in Chattogram’s Patenga.
The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation says the country currently has an oil reserve capacity for two and a quarter months. With the launch of the Single Point Mooring project, the capacity will be increased by another 15 days, thanks to onshore reserve tanks and pipelines’ storage capacity– 20,000 tonnes.
According to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division, the state-run Eastern Refinery can refine 15 lakh tonnes of crude oil per year. The project will help boost its capacity to 45 lakh tonnes.
