Furnace oil and jet-fuel prices are now jacked up in a row of raises in prices of petroleum products that stirred protests, including a nationwide transport strike.
Officials said the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) raised the furnace-oil price on the local market by 16.98 per cent to Tk 62 per litre with effect from Friday (Nov 5).
By a twin-stroke the BPC also increased the price of jet fuel for domestic flights by 7.79 per cent to Tk 77 per litre and for international flights by 5.79 per cent to US$0.73 per litre -- effective simultaneously from Nov 5.
The government decision on the raise in the prices of furnace oil and jet fuel comes in tandem with a series of price rises of almost all petroleum fuels, like diesel, LPG and kerosene.
Diesel and kerosene rates were raised by 23.07 per cent to Tk 80 per litre. The oil-price hike was hailed with a wildcat strike by transporters, which had lasted until Sunday.
A sudden launch halt also added woes to people, travelers in particular, besides cascading impacts of the strikes on supply chains amid already-high prices of daily necessities.
"The prices of furnace oil and the aviation fuel were hiked to foot the import costs of the fuels from skyrocketing international market," said a senior official concerned.
Furnace oil is mostly used in power plants in the country, most of which is consumed by privately owned power plants.
Sources said Bangladesh annually imports around 3.50 million tonnes of furnace oil containing 3.5 per cent sulfur. Of this volume, 3.20 million tonnes are imported by the private sector to run their power plants, and the remaining 300,000 tonnes by the BPC.
The country currently has furnace oil-fired power plants of around 5,700 megawatts (MW) of capacity, of which 4,500mw-capacity plants are owned by the private sector and the remaining 1,200mw plants state-owned.
Private-sector owners get 9.0-per cent service charge as incentives to import the fuel on their own.
The BPC also gets around 400,000 tonnes of furnace oil from its lone crude-oil refinery -- Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) -- to cater local demand.
The state corporation previously had raised the retail furnace-oil price by 26.19 per cent to Tk 53 per litre on July 4, 2020.
It imports around 350,000 tonnes of A-1 jet fuel every year to feed the demand of air-communications sector.
Consumer-rights groups protest such price-hike move at a time when living is getting costlier constantly for price rises of almost all necessaries, while the government sides cites recurring losses incurred in local marketing of the imported fuels.
Azizjst@yahoo.com