Govt to buy fuel, LNG from Singapore

The government is going to procure 1.235 million mts of petroleum fuel and 33.60 lakh MMBtu liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Singapore at a total cost of Tk 60.88 billion.

Approval for the procurement proposals came at the meeting of Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase held on Wednesday with Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the chair.

State-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) will import 1.234 million mts of petroleum fuel in different packages over the next six months from June-December 2021 at a total cost of Tk 57.74 billion or $683.366 million.

Unipec Singapore Pte Ltd. Singapore, Petro China International (Singapore) Pte Ltd, VitoI Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore, and Emirates National Oil Company Pte Ltd, Singapore are the suppliers of the fuel oil.

The supplier companies were selected through international quotation, said Shamsul Arefin, additional secretary to the Cabinet Division while briefing reporters after the meeting.

The Petrobangla and its sister concern RPGCL will import 3.360 million MMBtu of LNG from Excelerate Energy LP, United States spending Tk 3.14 billion. The unit price of the LNG was not disclosed.

In total, the meeting approved 10 procurement proposals.

The Cabinet committee approved a proposal of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) for awarding of a contract for procurement of design, development, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of telecom monitoring system for the telecom networks and systems of Bangladesh from TKC Telecom Inc, Canada at a cost of Tk 776.5 million.

A proposal of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) to procure 3 passenger cruise vessels from Karnaphuli Ship Builders at Tk 2.31 billion also got approval of the committee.

Under another approved proposal, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority will appoint a service provider at a cost of Tk 2.19 billion for collecting fees and taxes from motor vehicles through online for next five years.

However, it was not disclosed which company won the contract for the job.

Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) received the committee's approval for procuring 30,000 metric tons of bagged granular urea fertiliser from Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company (Kafco) at Tk 876.3 billion.

Approval also came for a proposal of Bangladesh Railway to change 9 points of the PCC (Particular Conditions of Contract) of the Commercial Contract and also its supplementary agreement -2 of the Padma Bridge Rail Connection Project with Chana Railway Group of China (CREC).

Though the conditions of the contract will be changed, but it will not have any effect on the contract value, Shamsul Arefin said.