CHATTOGRAM, Apr 27: The state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is going to appoint operations and maintenance (O&M) contractor for the operations of the Single Point Mooring (SPM) with double pipeline.
The implementing organization BPC will invite tender in this regard in the next month, BPC sources said.
The tender proposal for this has been approved by the Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA) last week, said Engineer Azadur Rahman, Director, Operations and Planning of BPC.
"After approval of the procedures, tender will be invited for appointment of O M Contractor in the next month," he confirmed.
The appointment of a contractor will be completed in the end of the current year. As a result, the operation of the project is expected to begin in the next year.
The operations of the Single Point Mooring (SPM) have been delayed to one year due to a decision of the government for appointment of O&M contractor through Open Tender Method (OTM) instead of G2G basis.
The SPM, built on 90 acres of land in Maheshkhali upazila, Cox's Bazar, is a government-to-government (G2G) initiative between Bangladesh and China, completed at a cost of Tk 8,341 crore in the last year.
The test commissioning of the project had also been completed in the past year. But due to new process of the appointment, the operation of SPM has now been delayed over one year.
The state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) undertook the project to streamline the offloading of petroleum products and their transportation via pipeline. The facility features a 36-inch-wide pipeline that transports crude oil from the mooring point to storage tanks at Kalamarchara in Matarbari.
Earlier, the government decided to award the contract for the O&M of Bangladesh's first Single Point Mooring (SPM) with a double pipeline project to the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co. Ltd (CPPEC) on G2G basis.
Meanwhile, in a meeting of the Advisers Council Committee on Economic Affairs (ACCEA) decided to appoint operations and maintenance (O&M) contractor through Open Tender Method (OTM).
After appointment of O M contractor, the authorities would sign the agreement with the O M contractor to begin operations, BPC sources said.
Currently, the decision to award the contract for the operation and maintenance (O&M) of SPM with a double pipeline project to the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co. Ltd (CPPEC) has been cancelled.
Earlier, the Advisers Council Committee on Economic Affairs (ACCEA) had approved a proposal from the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), the implementing agency of the SPM project, to sign the O&M contract with the Chinese company.
CPPEC had been working as the contractor for the SPM project, and BPC selected the firm for the O&M job without any competitive bidding process. The proposal was moved to ACCEA by the Energy and Mineral Resources Division under the Speedy Increase of Power and Energy Supply (Special Provision) Act 2010.
But presently, the government repealed the Speedy Increase of Power and Energy Supply (Special Provision) Act 2010 on December 1 last, following an order from the High Court that removed the scope for signing the contract with the Chinese firm.
The facility features a 36-inch-wide pipeline that transports crude oil from the mooring point to storage tanks at Kalamarchara in Matarbari.
From there, the oil is moved 220 kilometres to the Eastern Refinery in Patenga, Chittagong, via an 18-inch-wide pipeline. The entire 110km pipeline connects the deep-sea mooring point to the refinery.
According to officials, the SPM will significantly improve the efficiency of fuel offloading, reducing the time required to transfer imported petroleum from 11-12 days via lighterage ships to just 48 hours. This transition is expected to save approximately Tk 800 crore annually.
There are three tanks with a storage capacity of 1.80 lakh kilolitres for crude oil and three tanks with a capacity of 1.08 lakh kilolitres for refined oil.
In total, six storage tanks were built. Three of these tanks are designed to store crude oil, each with a 60,000 kilolitre capacity, while the remaining tanks are for storing diesel, each with a 36,000 kilolitre capacity.
The Netherlands-based Blue Water completed the construction of SPM 'Boya' at the project site.
Bangladesh annually imports around 6 million tonnes of crude and refined oil. Of this, 1.3 million tonnes are crude oil, with the remainder being refined petroleum products.
