DHAKA: Bangladesh will lower the sulphur content of all its gasoil imports from January next year, in line with a global trend towards cleaner fuel, having moved in that direction from this month, energy officials said on Wednesday.
The country will only import gasoil with 500 parts-per-million (ppm) sulphur from 2016 and will no longer take the 2,500 ppm grade, a senior official of the Bangladesh Petroleum Corp (BPC) told Reuters.
The state-owned company, the country's sole importer of gasoil, has already started importing cleaner gasoil this year.
Starting from January, it is not buying gasoil with 2,500 ppm from any oil companies except Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), the biggest supplier of gasoil to BPC with around 1 million tonnes a year.
BPC's contracts for gasoil with 2,500 ppm sulphur for the January-June period are at a premium of $4.50 per barrel over Middle East quotes, down from $4.80 per barrel for the second half of 2014.
Premiums for gasoil with 500 ppm were fixed at $4.60 a barrel over Middle East quotes.
Bangladesh imports around 3.0-3.3 million tonnes of gasoil a year to meet demand, while the country's sole Eastern Refinery produces around 350,000 tonnes, another BPC official said.
Other than KPC, suppliers for Bangladesh's middle distillates contracts included Malaysia's Petronas, Emirates National Oil Co (ENOC), Indonesia's Bumi Siak Pusako, Philippines National Oil Co, Vietnam's Petrolimex, PetroChina, Unipec and new supplier Turkish Petroleum International Company.
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