Govt to appoint Single Point Mooring operator via open tender
The Tk8,341cr project remains idle for over 9 months due to the failure to appoint an operator
The government has approved a proposal for appointing an operation and maintenance contractor for the Single Point Mooring (SPM) project through the Open Tender Method instead of a government-to-government (G2G) basis.
The failure to appoint an operator has left the SPM project – which aims to directly transport imported petroleum oil from ships to the refinery via pipelines and storage tanks in between – idle for over nine months since its commissioning in March 2024.
The Advisory Council Committee on Economic Affairs approved the proposal from the Energy and Mineral Resources Division during a meeting chaired by Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed at the Secretariat today (2 January), according to energy officials.
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Earlier, the committee had approved a proposal from the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, the implementing agency of the SPM project, to sign the operation and maintenance contract with the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co Ltd during its meeting on 21 November.
The company had been working as the contractor for implementing the project, and BPC selected the firm for the operation and maintenance job without any competitive bidding process. The proposal was moved to the Advisory Council body by the Energy Division under the Quick Enhancement of Electricity and Energy Supply (Special Provision) Act of 2010.
But a week after the approval, the government repealed the Act on 1 December, following an order from the High Court that removed the scope for signing the operation and maintenance contract with the Chinese firm.
According to officials, the SPM, built on 90 acres of land in Maheshkhali upazila in Cox's Bazar, is a G2G initiative between Bangladesh and China, at a cost of Tk8,341 crore.
The state-owned BPC undertook the project to streamline the offloading of petroleum products and their transportation via pipeline.
The facility features a 36-inch-wide pipeline that transports crude oil from the ship mooring point to storage tanks at Kalamarchara in Matarbari. From there, the oil is moved 220 kilometres to the Eastern Refinery in Patenga, Chattogram, via an 18-inch-wide pipeline.
