Bangladesh to import fuel oil from Vietnam

Bangladesh will import 120,000 tonnes of fuel oil from Vietnam’s Petrolimex as part of efforts to ease its electricity shortage by using oil-based power plants, a senior Bangladesh Petroleum Corp (BPC) official said Thursday, reports Reuters.

“Petrolimex will supply the fuel oil during July-December at a premium of $32 a tonne to Singapore spot quotes,” the official said.

BPC had paid the same premium to Petrolimex in the first half of this year and paid the same to other companies for fuel oil imports in the second half.

The Vietnamese national import-export company, normally a fuel oil buyer, turned seller for the first time and supplied 20,000 tonnes of fuel oil to BPC in the first half of this year.

Bangladesh is receiving oil supplies from a number of national oil companies including Petronas, PetroChina, Philippines National Oil Company, Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Emirates National oil Company, Maldives National Oil Company and Egypt’s Middle East oil Refinery (Midor).

BPC, the country’s sole oil importer and distributor, bought about 230,000 tonnes of fuel oil in the first-half of the year and has an expected requirement of up to 700,000 tonnes for the second-half, the official said.

Bangladesh is buying large volumes of fuels for power plants burning diesel or fuel oil, even though these are costly, as domestic gas supply have failed to keep pace with demand.

Until early 2010, Bangladesh was an occasional seller in the Asian fuel oil market, offering small volumes of about 30,000 tonnes irregularly.

Tags: fuel oil