Bangladesh-India oil pipeline set for inauguration on Saturday

Hasina and Modi will virtually join the inauguration of the 131 km pipeline connecting Siliguri with Dinajpur

Bangladesh and India are all set to inaugurate a 131 km pipeline to supply fuel oil from Siliguri to Dinajpur’s Parbatipur.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi will join the inauguration at Parbatipur on Saturday.

ABM Azad, chairman of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, said they conducted several successful test runs to prepare for the inauguration.

Officials of Meghna Petroleum, which has implemented the project, said the pipeline is able to reserve 4,700 tonnes of oil through its length.

The BPC depot at Parbatipur has the capacity to reserve 15,000 tonnes of oil. It is setting up six more tankers with a combined capacity of 29,000 tonnes.

According to the deal, India will send 200,000 tonnes of oil annually in the first three years, 300,000 tonnes per annum in the next three years, 500,000 tonnes annually in the next four years and 1 million tonnes annually afterwards.

The pipeline with India will cut transportation cost of fuel oil for Bangladesh by 50 percent, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid had said earlier.