Rupsha Tank Terminal and Refinery Ltd plans to set up an LPG bottling plant in the Mongla port area at a cost of around Tk 96 crore to popularise the use of liquid petroleum gas in households.
The company has already leased lands, constructed buildings and jetties and is now waiting to get a go-ahead from the government to import machinery, said Amirul Haque, managing director of the company.
The company plans to start commercial operation in January 2015, Haque said.
Initially, 300 tonnes of LPG will be bottled a day in the plant to be set up on 7.5 acres of land leased from Mongla Port Authority for 30 years.
The bottling capacity will be increased later, Haque said, adding that his company will import LPG from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.
People in the rural areas use firewood for cooking purposes, which affects the environment directly, said Haque, who is also involved in sectors such as shipping, cement, real estate, energy and shrimp.
The availability of LPG in those areas, where piped natural gas is not available, will encourage people to use gas instead of firewood.
Haque said they will employ around 600 people for the plant in Khulna and market LPG throughout the country.
Apart from domestic consumption, LPG is used as an efficient source of energy in industrial and commercial plants.
Bangladesh consumes more than 100,000 tonnes of LPG a year and the consumers are mostly the urban people in district towns and light engineering workshops across the country, according to industry people.
State-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation meets 20 percent of the domestic requirement, while the rest is imported by the private sector companies and marketed by them after bottling.
The industry people said the market for LPG grew by 18 percent in 2012.
-With The Daily Star input
