The oil tanker MT Fossil, carrying 100,000 tonnes of crude oil for the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) from Fujairah Port in the United Arab Emirates, has arrived at the outer anchorage of Chattogram Port.
It is the second crude oil shipment to reach Bangladesh since the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East.
The Panama-flagged vessel, measuring 248.96 meters in length, arrived at the outer anchorage on Friday morning. After completing customs and survey formalities, the crude oil will be transported to Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) in Patenga through a lightering process using smaller tanker vessels.
Eastern Refinery PLC Managing Director Sharif Hasnat said, “MT Fossil has reached the outer anchorage and preparations for lightering are underway. Another crude oil tanker is expected to arrive in Chattogram on May 30.”
Eastern Refinery, the country’s only state-owned oil refinery under BPC, produces 16 types of petroleum products from crude oil, including LPG, petrol, octane, kerosene, diesel, and furnace oil.
Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the resulting shortage of crude oil stock, ERL’s crude oil distillation unit was temporarily shut down on the night of April 12. However, Bangladesh avoided a major fuel crisis as multiple shipments of refined diesel, octane, and other petroleum products arrived from Singapore and Malaysia during the same period.
Sources said that earlier, the tanker MT Ninemia, carrying more than 100,000 tonnes of crude oil from Yanbu Port in Saudi Arabia, reached Chattogram Port on May 6 and successfully completed lightering operations. Following the unloading of that shipment, Eastern Refinery resumed full operations.
Meanwhile, another vessel named Nordics Pollux, loaded with nearly 100,000 tonnes of crude oil for BPC, remains stranded at Ras Tanura Port in Saudi Arabia due to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. As an alternative, BPC has started importing crude oil through Yanbu Port on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. Another crude oil shipment from Yanbu is expected to arrive in Bangladesh on May 30.
Eastern Refinery processes around 1.5 million tonnes of crude oil annually, meeting nearly 20 percent of Bangladesh’s yearly fuel demand of approximately 7.2 million tonnes. About 92 percent of the country’s fuel requirement is met through imports, while the remaining 8 percent comes from local sources and condensate processing.
According to BPC data, diesel remains the most consumed fuel in Bangladesh, followed by furnace oil, petrol, octane, kerosene, and jet fuel used in aviation. In the 2024–25 fiscal year, BPC sold a total of 6.835 million tonnes of petroleum products.
