BPC in trouble for bringing oil for PDB

Staff Correspondent : Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is in trouble while bringing fuel oil. Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) takes furnace oil from BPC for power generation. But in this quarter (October-November December) BPC imports oil but PDB does not take it. In addition to saving oil, BPC is also in danger of paying the price.
Generally, BPC imports 43,000 to 43,500 million metric tons of furnace oil for power generation. About 17 million metric tons of furnace oil was imported in this quarter. All of which has been imported for government power plants.
16,000 to 17,000 MW of electricity is required in summer. But now the electricity demand is between 9000 MW during the day and 8-9000 MW during the night, so that there is no need to run oil-based power plants. Even the production of gas-based power plants has been reduced.
Besides, the country’s coal-fired power plants are not being run at full capacity. These power plants are running at a load of 3,000 to 3,500 megawatts, whereas coal-based power plants can produce up to 6,500 megawatts.
Meanwhile, the production capacity of gas-based power plants is over 8,000 megawatts. But 4 thousand MW is being produced there.
In a recent meeting held in the Energy Department, BPC Director (Marketing) Anupam Barua said that BPC is in trouble by importing oil. Despite repeated requests, PDB is not agreeing to take the oil. In the meeting, Energy Secretary Nurul Alam directed BPC to write to PDB to take oil.
When asked, an official of BPC (who did not wish to be named) said, “Although private power plants import furnace oil for themselves, we supply all furnace oil to PDB.” That is why PDB gives us oil demand every three months. This time was no different. We imported oil based on the demand they gave us this time. A huge amount of BPC’s money is stuck in it.
A PDB official who did not want to be named said that although there is no demand for oil-based power plants in the winter season, the demand increases in the upcoming irrigation season. At that time, the demand for fuel in oil-based power plants increases. At that time our oil demand will also increase.
Incidentally, on December 28, an inter-ministerial review meeting at Vidyut Bhavan informed that the overall demand for electricity during the irrigation season in the coming year 2024 is likely to be 17,800 MW. The highest demand for electricity was 16,000 megawatts in April of the last irrigation season. As a result, the demand has increased by 1,008 megawatts.
To meet this demand, gas demand is estimated at 1,760 million cubic feet, furnace oil demand is 1,54,950 metric tons and diesel demand is 15,600 metric tons. It was informed in the meeting that it is necessary to increase the supply of gas, furnace oil and diesel to increase the power generation during the irrigation season.
According to the energy department, there is no shortage of furnace oil and diesel and will be supplied according to demand.