DHAKA: Bangladesh Petroleum Corp (BPC) will hold talks with 10 companies to fix final prices for its long-term oil product imports for delivery in the second half of 2017, two BPC officials said on Tuesday. The state-owned company is seeking to buy 1.65 million tonnes of gasoil, 245,000 tonnes of jet fuel and 200,000 tonnes of fuel oil in 2017 under the term contracts. Premiums for the contracts will be fixed in the next week, one of the officials told Reuters. BPC last week said it received offers from 11 companies in a separate tender for oil products that is for up to 1.06 million tonnes of gasoil, jet fuel and fuel oil for second-half 2017 delivery.
The company plans to use the lowest offers in the tender as a benchmark for the term imports and fix the term premiums lower than that, the official said. Unipec and Vitol are set to win the tender with the lowest offers on middle distillates and fuel oil. Unipec submitted the lowest gasoil premiums for the tender at US$2.27 to US$2.47 a barrel to Middle East quotes and the lowest jet fuel premium at US$2.87 a barrel. Vitol had the lowest offer for the second-half 2017 contract at US$29.73 a barrel to Singapore quotes. The offers for the tender are higher compared with an existing first-half 2017 contract Bangladesh has with Unipec, in which gasoil was sealed below US$2.20 a barrel and jet fuel at US$2.76 a barrel.
Kuwait Petroleum Corp will supply the bulk of the contract with 1.02 million tonnes of gasoil and 210,000 tonnes of jet fuel, the officials said. Malaysia’s Petronas will supply 210,000 tonnes of gasoil, 60,000 tonnes of fuel oil and 15,000 tonnes of jet fuel, the officials said. PetroChina will supply 120,000 tonnes of gasoil and 40,000 tonnes of fuel oil and Unipec will supply 120,000 tonnes of gasoil, they said. Other sellers include Emirates National Oil Company, Philippines National Oil Company, Vietnam’s Petrolimex, Thailand’s PTT, Indonesia’s Bumi Siak Pusako and Zhenhua Oil. BPC also buys a small quantity of gasoil from India’s Numaligarh Refinery in a state-to-state deal.