SPM Project Heralds New Era of Sustainable Fuel Management in Country

When Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina officially launches the Installation of Single Point Mooring (SPM) project this year, it will mark the beginning of a new era in which imported crude oil is directly discharged from ships in the deep ocean.

According to project officer Monjed Ali Shanto, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would introduce the SPM project by the end of this year to improve the country's energy management system's efficiency, sustainability, and environmental friendliness.

Officials acquainted with the process claim that a 15 km pipeline has already been constructed from land to deep sea in order to immediately unload imported petroleum oil into the SPM.

Shanto claimed that 95% of the project's work had already been finished because its independent test run had already been finished.

When he briefed media at the SPM project site, he said that it will take only 48 hours to discharge the imported petroleum oil, as opposed to the prior 11 to 12 days via the conventional approach.

He claimed that after the project is finished, gasoline from mother vessels (big ships), which are presently berthed at the outer quay, won't require lighterage to be transported.

The SPM was constructed in Maheshkhali Upazila in Cox's Bazar on more than 90 acres of land as part of a G2G project between Bangladesh and China for a price of Tk8341 crore.

"Once the SPM goes into operation, around Tk800 crore will be saved annually by cutting the carrying cost of petroleum products from outer anchorage to fuel tanks," Shanto said, adding that it will also save time.

According to officials acquainted with the procedure, three tanks with a combined storage capacity of 1.80 million kilos of crude oil and three tanks with a combined storage capacity of 1.08 million kilos of supplied oil would be used.

The project officer declared, "Using the current infrastructure, it is not possible to offload petroleum oil through literage operation and the process is very time consuming, expensive, and risky."

Nine million metric tons can be unloaded annually using the SPM.

Additionally, a 120-kilometer pipeline from the SPM project to Eastern Refinary Limited (EFL) was constructed in order to refine the crude oil.

A total of 45,000 metric tons of crude oil can be stored in the SPM.

A 135 km offshore pipeline and a 58 km onshore pipeline have already been installed as part of the project's work.

The correspondent discovered during a visit to the project site that the SPM project is virtually finished because the six storage tanks have already been built.

Three of the six tanks, each with a capacity of 60,000 kilos, will be able to store crude oil, while the remaining four, each with a capacity of 36,000 kilos, will be able to store diesel.

Blue Water, a Dutch company, finished building SPM "Boya," which is now ready to be delivered to the project site.

The first SPM system in the nation is now being constructed by the China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co Ltd.

The BPC currently pays $5.50 per ton to lighterage or small vessels, owned mainly by the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, to ferry petroleum to its onshore tanks from larger mother vessels.

The SPM project will save the cost of the BPC.

Bangladesh annually imports around 6.0-million tonnes of crude and 1.3-million tonnes of refined oil.

Source: BSS