Trial run of single-point mooring begins

The trial run of the long-awaited single-point mooring has begun at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar after delay over inclement weather.

Md Sharif Hasnat, a general manager of Eastern Refinery Ltd., said workers started unloading crude oil from a ship in the deep sea through the single-point mooring system to a terminal at Moheshkhali’s Kalarmarchhara on Monday morning, according to bdnews24.com.

The oil will be taken to the refinery in Chattogram’s Patenga via Anwara, he said.

The ship carrying 82,000 tonnes of crude oil from Saudi Arabia arrived at the mooring point on Jun 24 night and the trial run was set to begin the following day, but bad weather forced the authorities to defer the launch.

Officials at the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and ERL said preparations have also been made to commission the second pipeline. They are hopeful about officially inaugurating the facility sometime in July or August.

At present, the country imports more than 6 million tonnes of fuel by sea. But infrastructural limitations at the Chattogram Port and navigability issues along the Karnaphuli channel prevent mother vessels from offloading fuel directly.

As a result, these tankers are anchored in the deep sea and unload crude oil through small lighterage vessels. It takes about 11 days to unload a tanker with a capacity of 100,000 DWT.

As the method is time-consuming, risky and expensive, the single-point mooring (SMP) project was initiated in 2015. The SMP is an offshore buoy designed to pump and siphon fuel oil to an onshore storage facility.

The project was supposed to be completed by December 2018 at a cost of Tk 49.4 billion, but the deadline has already been extended three times.

The delays also drove up the project outlay to Tk 71.3 billion. ERL authorities believe that the cost will rise a bit more due to the increase in the value of the dollar.