Bangladesh begins importing 500 ppm sulphur diesel
Under instructions from the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has begun importing diesel fuel with a lower sulphur content of 0.05% (500 parts per million, or ppm), down from the 0.25% that it had previously been importing.
All of BPC’s foreign suppliers, except for Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC), have confirmed that they will supply this lower sulphur diesel fuel from January 2015. BPC said that KPC will supply the fuel by January 2016. The first shipment came from the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) on 5 January.
Besides KPC and PNOC, its other international suppliers include Petco, Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), PetroChina, Bumi Siak Pusako, Petrolimex, Unipec Singapore and Turkish Petroleum International Company.
BPC is the country’s only importer of diesel fuel, and currently imports 3.0-3.5 million tonnes of diesel fuel each year to meet domestic demand. It estimates that importing lower-sulphur diesel fuel could raise the price by of diesel fuel 40 to 60 U.S. cents per barrel.