Bangladesh Petroleum seeks subsidy of US$350 million

State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corp. (BPC) is seeking a government subsidy of BDT 28.74 billion (US$350.43 million) for oil imports in the quarter ending September. The requested subsidy is 17.3% lower than the BDT34.74 billion (US$425 million) it received in the year-ago period.
BPC requested a lower subsidy despite plans to import a larger volume of oil products this year, as domestic fuel prices were raised three times in September, November and December in the previous fiscal year.
BPC estimates revenues of BDT82 billion (US$1 billion) from sale proceeds during the first quarter of the current fiscal year, higher than the BDT76 billion (US$930 million) during the same period last year.
Despite several domestic price hikes, BPC is currently incurring losses in the sales of sulfur gasoil and high sulfur fuel oil. The company plans to import 1.4 million metric tons of crude and refined products over July-September this year, compared to shipments of 1.3 million metric tons a year ago.
BPC currently has term deals in place until December 2012 to import refined oil products from Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Petco, the trading arm of Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, the Philippine National Oil Company, Emirates National Oil Company, Egypt’s Middle East Oil Refinery, Maldives National Oil Company, China’s state-owned PetroChina and Indonesia’s Bumi Siak Pusako. It also has deals in place to import crude oil from Saudi Aramco and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. (August 16, 2012)