Diesel transport through undersea pipeline begins

After a long wait, transporting diesel through an undersea pipeline has started in the country.

Diesel pumping started from the mother vessel MT Jag Aparna, which was waiting in the deep sea at 2:48pm today, said officials.

About 60,000 metric tonnes of diesel will be pumped from this ship.

Officials expressed hope that the oil discharge from this diesel-carrying mother vessel will be completed within two days.

Under the Single Point Mooring (SPM) project, two parallel pipelines have been installed -- one for crude oil and the other for diesel -- about 16 km off the Maheshkhali coast of Cox's Bazar district.

Besides, there is a floating mooring point in the deep sea and a storage tank terminal in Maheshkhali.

Last July, an oil tanker named "MT Hare" took the initiative to supply fuel experimentally with SPM for the first time, but it failed due to a fault in the pipeline.

About 4 months after the fault was rectified, fuel supply operations resumed. This time, officials of the Eastern Refinery Ltd in Chattogram's Patenga said no error was detected in the process.

Managing Director of Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) Mohammad Lokman told The Daily Star that the crude oil pipeline was commissioned on November 30. And today the commissioning of the diesel pipeline took place.

ERL officials said diesel has been transported from the floating mooring to the storage tank terminal of Maheshkhali through two pipelines with a diameter of 36 inches from this afternoon.

Officials also said crude oil will be pumped from Maheshkhali's storage tank terminal and sent to Chattogram's Eastern Refinery. Lokman said this pipeline will play an important role in meeting the growing demand for fuel in the country.

A total of TK 7,124 crore is being spent on the implementation of this project. The BPC, government and Chinese Exim Bank have financed the project. Once the project is fully operational, the transportation of fuel cost through lighter vessels from outer anchorage in the Bay of Bengal to the Eastern Refinery will be reduced.

This will save about Tk 800 crore every year, the officials added.