Joint venture to fund Bangladeshi refinery expansion

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 31 -- A Saudi investment group has joined a Bangladeshi industrial conglomerate to invest nearly $1 billion in an expansion of Bangladesh’s only refinery.

The Marasel Co. of Saudi Arabia and Beximco of Bangladesh have set up a JV to fund a tripling of capacity of the 33,000 b/d Eastern Refinery Ltd. facility at the port of Chittagong, according to press reports.

Bangladesh Petroleum Corp. has solicited expressions of interest in the project, which would include installation of a single-point mooring and pipeline. The refinery fills about 40% of the country’s demand for oil products.

In addition to crude and vacuum distillation capacity, the refinery has these processing capacities, 10,000 b/d visbreaking, 1,800 b/d catalytic reforming, 1,200 b/d mild cat hydrocracking for distillate upgrading, and 2,000 b/d cat hydrotreating for reformer feed (OGJ, Dec. 21, 2009, p. 46).