Bangladesh eyes Vietnam, Malaysia to import oil

Bangladesh will meet its additional oil demand through imports from Vietnam and Malaysia along with existing sources like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India and United Arab Emirates, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Bangladesh will have to increase its oil import by more than 37 percent to 4.8 million tons as the government plans to run several power plants fuelled by diesel and furnace oil to generate more than 1,350 megawatts of electricity.

"We received a proposal from Vietnam and are negotiating with Malaysia to meet our increased oil demand by the middle of next year," Anwarul Karim, chairman of the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), told Reuters.

State-run BPC is the sole importer and distributor of oil in Bangladesh, which consumes up to 3.5 million tons of oil every year at a cost of between $2.5 and $3.5 billion.

Karim said the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group Petro Vietnam had already proposed to supply fuel to BPC, and "we will sit with them to fix the rate of premium and other conditions."

"We are also negotiating with a number of oil exporting companies including Malaysian national oil company Petronas."

BPC will also negotiate with state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) this month for a new deal after the expiry of the existing deal which will end in December this year and increase the volume of oil import.

Officials said state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board would allow 18 plants to run on diesel and furnace oil to generate up to 1,350 mw of electricity which would require the import of an addition of nearly 1.3 million tons of fuel.

At present Bangladesh is producing between 3,500 and 4,200 mw of electricity with demand at 5,000 mw and rising by 7 to 8 percent each year.

Bangladesh also imports oil from Philippines National Oil Company (PNOC) and Maldives National Oil Company (MNOC).

Under the current term for the July-December period, 2009, the KPC is supplying 360,000 tonnes of diesel and 60,000 tons of jet fuel to BPC.

thanhnien, Reuters

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