A DAILY reported on Monday that private fuel refining companies have been selling adulterated fuel unabatedly for a long time and making hefty profits in exchange of reducing the lifespan of vehicles. As the government has no inspection mechanism to protect people from the companies’ greed, people have to pay extra for automobile fuel. Nevertheless, the government is now planning to provide refining companies with fresh incentives by way of increasing their profit margins by Tk 4 to Tk 7 per litre fuel. Showing reluctance to the people’s sufferings and supporting the illegal business of refiners can not be an expected behaviour from the government.The government paid no heed to age-old complaints from motorists and the other consumers that filling stations were selling adulterated fuel. During random inspections over the past years, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) found a high presence of condensate in petrol and octane sold by most of the filling stations. Private refining companies buy natural-gas condensate from Petrobangla which they sell to BPC as petrol and octane often without refining the fuels, although they are contract bound to refine the fuels before selling them to BPC. Private refiners refine a part of the condensate they buy from Petrobangla and sell the refined fuels to BPC while they directly and illegally sell the unrefined condensate to the filling stations.The huge differences between the price of condensate and the retail prices of octane and petrol motivate the refiners to indulge in the illegal practice. Another factor that motivates the refiners not to refine all the condensate they buy from Petrobangla is that they sell refined fuels to BPC at much lower prices compared to the prices at which BPC sells them to filling stations. BPC data reveals that private refiners supply approximately two lakh tonnes of petrol and octane, which constitute two-thirds of annual demand.Despite the decade-long illegal practice of maximizing profit by damaging vehicles, private refiners claimed to the Minister concerned that they are incurring losses. The Ministry should check the illegal practice by setting up a monitoring cell to protect people’s interests.
