Eastern Refinery restarts operations after crude oil arrival
The country's lone oil refinery, Eastern Refinery PLC, is set to resume its operations tomorrow.
Mamunur Rashid Khan, Deputy General Manager (Operations) of Eastern Refinery PLC, confirmed the development to BSS today.
He said, "A shipment of crude oil has arrived in the country. If everything goes as planned, refining activities will restart after 5:00pm tomorrow."
He added that they have set a daily production target of approximately 3,500 tons initially.
"Production is being kept low at the start due to the need for technical adjustments, which will be gradually increased later," he said.
Mamunur Rashid Khan further informed that the ship 'MT Nynemia,' carrying crude oil from Saudi Arabia for the refinery, anchored at Kutubdia in Cox's Bazar today. It contains 1,00,094 metric tons of crude oil.
According to Eastern Refinery sources, the current stock of oil is sufficient to continue refining operations for approximately 20 to 25 days. The next shipment of crude oil is expected to arrive after May 20.
The sources also mentioned that if the new shipment is loaded in Saudi Arabia between May 10 and May 12, there will be no disruption in supply. The next shipment may also contain approximately 100,000 metric tons of crude oil, depending on the capacity of the vessel.
"A shipment of crude oil has arrived in the country today. According to the plan, refining activities will commence at maximum capacity starting tomorrow," Md. Sharif Hasnat, Managing Director of Eastern Refinery PLC, told BSS.
