Govt appoints Indonesian firm to operate BPC’s Tk 8,298cr SPM after 2yrs

The government today decided to appoint Indonesian company PT Pertamina Trans Kontinental as the operations and maintenance contractor for the single point mooring (SPM) built in the sea to unload oil from large ships and pipe the fuel to onshore storage facilities.

The government will pay nearly Tk 1,950 crore to the Indonesian company for the job, according to a decision taken by the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Read more

Bangladesh is paying for oil pipeline it can’t use

The decision comes after the SPM, built at an inflated cost of Tk 8,298 crore following repeated extensions of the deadline, has been sitting idle for more than two years. The interim government could not take a decision on the appointment of the contractor.

By this time, loan repayments for the SPM project — the first integrated offshore-onshore oil storage and transport system in Bangladesh — have begun.

The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has repaid Tk 3,077 crore, and the next instalment of Tk 690 crore is due by December.

The 18-month guarantee period with the contractor for fixing technical faults in the SPM has expired.

The delay alone has cost an estimated Tk 1,000 crore to Tk 1,200 crore in lost savings. 

BPC began building it in Maheshkhali of Cox’s Bazar in August 2018 to replace the slow and costly practice of unloading oil from larger tankers onto lighterage vessels.

The construction was completed in March 2024 after four deadline extensions, pushing the cost from about Tk 5,000 crore to Tk 8,298 crore. The SPM lets large tankers moor at a floating buoy offshore and pump crude oil and diesel straight into subsea pipelines. 

The operation of the SPM will cut unloading and transport time to about 48 hours from present 11-day process of unloading a large tanker to just hours.