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Published : 05 May 2026, 09:52 PM
A vessel carrying 100,000 tonnes of crude oil from Saudi Arabia has entered Bangladesh’s territorial waters, paving the way for the country’s only state-owned oil refinery to resume full-scale production.
The Marshall Islands-flagged tanker MT Ninemia is expected to reach the Kutubdia channel around 11am on Wednesday.
Following the completion of necessary formalities, the ship-to-ship transfer (lightering) of crude oil to the Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) will commence the same day.
Operations at the ERL had nearly ground to a halt since Apr 14 due to a severe crude oil shortage triggered by the ongoing conflict in West Asia.
Officials said full-scale production is expected to resume this Thursday.
The MT Ninemia departed from Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port on Apr 21.
Commodore Mahmudul Malek, managing director of the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC), confirmed on Tuesday night that the vessel was positioned 150 nautical miles, roughly 278km, from the port.
"It will reach the Kutubdia channel on Wednesday, and lightering operations will begin immediately after formalities," he said.
ERL Eyes Full Production on Thursday
The refinery had been struggling since mid-April, with two of its five units shut down for maintenance and the remaining three running on "dead stock".
ERL Managing Director Md Sharif Hasnat told bdnews24.com, "If everything, including the weather, remains favourable, we will be able to go into full production across all five units by Thursday once the oil supply reaches the refinery."
No crude oil shipments had arrived in Bangladesh since the outbreak of the Iran war.
The last shipment arrived on Feb 18, 10 days before the conflict began on Feb 28.
ERL had been sustaining operations with that stock until it was exhausted.
The Eastern Refinery has an annual processing capacity of 1.5 million tonnes, refining crude oil imported from Saudi Arabia and the UAE into 13 types of fuel, including diesel, petrol, octane, and jet fuel.
According to Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) data, ERL produced 15.33 million tonnes of fuel in the 2024-25 fiscal year, with diesel accounting for 648,612 tonnes.
With a national diesel demand of 4 to 4.2 million tonnes annually, the refinery’s output is critical to reducing reliance on costly refined oil imports.
