The much-anticipated transportation of imported fuel oil through an underwater pipeline set up in the Bay of Bengal will start today.

With this, Bangladesh will enter a new era of fuel transportation, following the implementation of the project titled “Single Point Mooring with Double Pipe Line,” the first of its kind in the country.

Sources in the Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL), the implementing authority of the high-tech project, said imported crude oil and diesel were offloaded from oil-tankers through a single point mooring (SPM) located in the Bay of Bengal near Moheshkhali coast in Cox’s Bazar on 3 December and 7 December last year, respectively.

Later, the petroleum products were transported to storage tanks set up at Moheshkhali. After conducting different examinations and fixing some problems, the authorities set 29 February for finally transporting diesel through the undersea pipeline to the ERL storage tank in the port city’s Patenga area, said sources.

ERL Managing Director Md Lokman told the Daily Sun on Wednesday that they will initially start transporting 40,000 tonnes of diesel, out of 60,000 tonnes in total, very slowly and carefully through the 94-km long pipeline from Thursday.

“It will take some 17 hours for the petroleum product to reach the ERL tank in the city’s Patenga area from Moheshkhali,” said Md Lokman, adding that the rest of the diesel will be transported gradually through the pipeline that have a capacity of carrying 900 cubic metre oil per hour.

ERL will also transport crude oil from Moheshkhali on 9 March after the successful transportation of diesel, he said.

The ERL managing director said the project will help the government save time and money as the products will directly reach the storage tanks from vessels.

Around Tk800 crore will be saved annually due to the adoption of the new technology. Besides, it will also reduce the transportation time to only 48 hours from 12-14 days, said Md Lokman.

Earlier, oil tanker “Horae” carrying 82,000 tonnes of crude oil from Saudi Arabia was moored with a specialised buoy of the SPM on 2 July last year.

Once the installed pipeline was connected with the vessel’s discharge line, some problems regarding the hosepipe arose, causing a delay in discharging the fuel oil.

After fixing the problems, offloading fuel from the vessel resumed on the next day. However, the imported fuel could not be offloaded through the SPM due some more technical problems, prompting the authorities to transport the product with a lighter vessel following the traditional process, said the sources.

Currently, the government imports over 60 lakh tonnes of fuel oil through the waterways. But, due to the lack of required navigability in the Karnaphuli river channel, large oil-tankers cannot offload oil directly at the port jetty.

Previously, oil was usually offloaded from large vessels using lighter vessels, which took around 12 to 14 days.

To get rid of the time-consuming, risky and expensive process, the SPM project was initiated in 2015. The project involving around Tk4,936 crore was scheduled to be completed by 2018.

With extension of the project duration for three times, its cost reached Tk7,125 crore. The government and the Export–Import Bank of China financed the project, said the sources concerned.

Under the project, a storage capacity of two lakh tonnes has been developed at Moheshkhali. According to the sources, the SPM has been set up in the Bay of Bengal, west off the coast of Kalamarchhara union under the Moheshkhali upazila in Cox’s Bazar.

Crude oil and diesel will be unloaded from SPM through two separate pipelines of 36 inch diameter. The oil will be brought to a pump station at the Kalamarchhara through a pipeline of 16 km.

From there, those will be transported to the ERL through 94-km long pipelines. The ERL, having an annual capacity of refining 15 lakh tonnes of crude oil, now can store 5 lakh tonnes of oil, said sources.