The government has decided to frame a policy for the condensate fractionation plants set up by private entrepreneurs to regulate supply of condensate from local gas fields,
its import and marketing of the refined products.
The Energy Division has already drafted the Policy for Condensate Fractionation Plants in Private Sector 2013 and sought opinions from the stakeholders on the draft, officials said.
The government has taken the decision when the country’s condensate fractionation capacity shot much higher than the supply from the local gas fields, they said.
The country’s total capacity for refining condensate has increased to more than five lakh tonnes a year while the local gas fields supply a total of three lakh tonnes of condensate a year.
The officials also said that the private entrepreneurs had been influencing the authorities concerned to get condensate from the local gas fields leaving the capacity of the public sector fractionation plants unutilised.
Condensate is a by-product of gas which can be refined into different petroleum products like petrol, octane and liquefied petroleum gas.
‘We want the policy as soon as possible as the sector is expanding fast,’ Energy Division secretary Md Mozammel Huq Khan told New Age.
The Energy Division would finalise the draft by August after scrutinising the opinions of the stakeholders, an Energy Division official said.
‘Then the draft will be placed before the cabinet for its final approval after getting approval of the energy minister and vetting from the law ministry,’ he said.
Mozammel said that the policy would encourage the private entrepreneurs to import condensate to meet the country’s demand for petroleum products like petrol, octane and kerosene.
‘Refining imported condensate into petroleum products here in Bangladesh will save a huge amount of foreign currency,’ he said.
Six private sector fractionation plants have already been installed with a combined refining capacity of about two lakh tonnes of condensate a year and a number of such plants are in the process to be installed.
Besides, five public sector fractionation plants can refine more than three lakh tonnes of condensate, officials said.
According to the draft policy, the state-run Petrobangla will supply condensate which is produced from the local gas fields to the private sector fractionation plants only after meeting demand of the state-run plants.
Private entrepreneurs will be allowed to import condensate and export the refined products of the condensate by building infrastructures with their own means, the draft said. The entrepreneurs will be allowed to export after meeting the domestic demand for petroleum products.
The entrepreneurs will not be allowed to sell the refined petroleum products directly to the local market. They will sell the refined products to the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation in line with the BPC’s schedule.
The private sector fractionation plants will have to produce the petroleum products set by the BPC.
The government will set the price of condensate supplied by Petrobangla to the private fractionation plants and the produces of the fractionation plants which BPC will buy from them.
-With New Age input
