Foreign consortium to invest in Bangladesh oil refinery

A foreign consortium led by the Czech state-owned export bank is willing to invest US$ 2.5 billion in what will be Bangladesh’s largest crude oil refinery at Kutubdia island. The proposed oil refinery will be erected on 400 acres of land in southern Chittagong and will have an annual crude throughput of six million tons of crude oil. “We will be able to serve the entire Asian market, even challenging Singapore’s long dominance in the refined oil market,” Mahbubur Rahman, local honorary consular of the Czech Republic, said. “We’ll offer a 20% stake to the government in lieu of the required land for the project,” Rahman, who is also the local sponsor, said. The majority foreign-owned oil refinery would dwarf the state-run Eastern Refinery Ltd. (ERL). The foreign consortium group includes the state-run export banks of the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. (August 11, 2009)