DHAKA: Bangladesh has approved to go ahead with a $3bn investment by Saudi Arabia to set up an oil refinery with a capacity to produce 300,000 barrels of oil products a day, a senior official said yesterday.
Hi-Tech International Group of Saudi Arabia and Cosmopolitan Oil Refinery Management Limited of Bangladesh last February signed a deal to implement the project within the next 40 months, officials said.
Mohammed Mohsin, secretary of government’s energy and mineral resources division, told Reuters that the Saudi firm would produce for the domestic market but may also make products for export.
The plant will be set up with foreign investment and will import more than 5mn tonnes of crude oil from Saudi Arabia.
The refinery’s production capacity will be more than three times that of the state-run Bangladesh Eastern Refinery Limited (BERL), the only refinery in the country, Cosmopolitan Oil Refinery Management Chairman Dewan Sultan Ahmed told Reuters.
BERL, at the port city of Chittagong with 1.5mn tonnes capacity, supplies refined oil to three state-owned oil firms for distribution across the country.
Bangladesh imports 3.8mn tonnes of fuel a year, including about 1.5mn tonnes of crude oil, officials said. – Reuters |
