Business Desk :
State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited has decided to develop its Assam-based Numaligarh Refinery as an export hub for petroleum products to neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal, agencies report.
While the company is planning to lay a 130-km oil pipeline connecting the refinery’s marketing terminal at Siliguri in West Bengal with Parbatipur in Bangladesh, it has already signed an agreement with Nepal’s Birat Petroleum for supplying petroleum products.
“We are hopeful of starting the survey work of Siliguri to Parbatipur pipeline in a month’s time,” a top executive at the refinery told ET on condition of anonymity. “Bangladesh government is very keen on the project.”
The pipeline will cost Rs200 crore and have a carrying capacity of 1 million metric tonne per annum (mmtpa) of high speed diesel (HSD). “Initially, Numaligarh Refinery will export HSD to Bangladesh. We also have plans to enter Myanmar,” the executive quoted earlier said, adding that a team from the refinery will shortly visit Bangladesh to firm up the agreement.
Bangladesh has a shortfall of 1.5 mmtpa of petroleum products. Numaligarh Refinery had in 2007 exported 4,800 million tonne of diesel to Bangladesh through the waterways. The value of the export was around Rs 15 crore. Bharat Petroleum is in the process of expanding the refinery’s capacity to 9 mmtpa from 3 mmtpa.
As for Nepal, the executive quoted earlier said, the government of that country has approved import of petroleum products from Numaligarh Refinery. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas had approved inclusion of Numaligarh Refinery along with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for supply of petroleum products to Nepal. IOCBSE 3.68 % has till now been the sole supplier to Nepal.
According to the agreement, Numaligarh Refinery will supply 100 kilo litre of motor spirit and 5,000 kilo litre of HSD per month to Birat Petroleum. The supply is expected to begin from June.
