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Published : 21 Apr 2026, 10:03 PM
A crude oil tanker carrying 100,000 tonnes of oil has set sail from Saudi Arabia for Bangladesh, more than two months after the last such shipment arrived in the country.
The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel MT Ninemia departed from Yanbu port at 6am Bangladesh time on Tuesday, bound for Chattogram Port, said Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) Managing Director Commodore Mahmudul Malek.
“As Yanbu is located on the Red Sea, the vessel will not need to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. So there should be no issue in reaching Bangladesh,” he said.
The tanker is expected to arrive in Bangladesh waters on May 6, he added.
The shipment is being overseen by BSC amid an ongoing nationwide fuel crisis.
Due to the conflict in the Middle East, Bangladesh’s only state-owned refinery Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) is now “on the verge of shutdown”, with two of its units already closed.
Officials said the remaining three units are being operated somehow using “dead stock” or the last remaining reserves of crude oil.
The arrival of MT Ninemia is expected to ease the crisis at ERL and increase daily fuel supply.
Earlier, another tanker carrying 100,000 tonnes of crude oil was scheduled to arrive from Ras Tanura port in Saudi Arabia in March, but it has yet to reach Bangladesh.
No crude oil shipments have arrived in the country since the start of the Middle East conflict.
The last shipment reached Bangladesh on Feb 18, 10 days before the war began on Feb 28, and ERL has been refining that stock since then.
