DHAKA: Bangladesh is likely to incur more than $285 million in losses on imports of fuel oil in the fiscal year to June, or almost twice the amount lost last year, a senior energy official said on Monday.
"This is due to high oil prices in the global markets and higher domestic demand for oil-fired power plants," said Mohammad Saiful Islam, a director of the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).
The BPDB has agreed to buy electricity from oil-fired private power plants and rental generators based on market prices, but it sells power on to consumers at low rates.
BPDB had posted an annual loss of around $143 million in the past several years, the director said.
This year, the average cost of benchmark Brent crude rose to nearly $105 per barrel in the first quarter, up $25 per barrel from the average in 2010.
The price upswing in volatile international oil markets may continue until the current unrest in the Middle East and the Libya crisis is over, Saiful told Reuters.
The director said the government would implement a plan for electricity production to rise to nearly 10,000 megawatts by 2015 to tackle power shortages that often stir public protests. About half of it would come from private high-cost power plants that burn diesel or furnace oil.
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