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Editorial

ERL project incomplete for 12 years

Take measures to enhance country’s petroleum refining capacity


Bangladeshpost
Published : 23 Feb 2022 07:43 PM

In the last decade, mineral resources sector has witnessed a revolutionary enhancement and progress in our country. Under the able leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina we witnessed sheer development in this sector.

As reported by this daily on Wednesday Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL), under Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) as a subsidiary, undertook a project to increase the country’s petroleum refining capacity through building a second unit, ERL-2.However, the project has not been launched even in 12 years.

The development project proposal (DPP) relating to the second unit had been amended for the 10th time recently. The final proposal has been sent to the ministry. But it has not been approved yet.

According to sources, if the government implements this project, the private sector refineries will have to do business in a competitive market. Due to such reasons the BPC could not start work on the project even after a decade.

We also

recommend the government 

to approve various range of energy efficiency 

programmes for the 

future of country’s energy security

The government should therefore focus on originating more research and development programmes. This should be done to explore more sustainable sources of mineral resources and instead of using oil we can extract cheap gas-based solutions for electricity production, which will further decrease the cost of production and increase profit. We also recommend the government to approve various range of energy efficiency programmes for the future of country’s energy security.

Bangladesh still has many unexplored areas and potential reserve forms, and conducting surveys will surely increase high prospects of finding significant new gas and maybe oil reserves as well. Therefore, a proper survey drive can certainly offer the country enough gas to offset the policy of imported energy dependence. The government should also pass the complexities of this project and give it a serious drive to launch the ERL-2 project to increase country’s petroleum refining capacities.