Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) is going to add six vessels to its crippled fleet in a year - five vessels in the current calendar year and the rest in February next.
The BSC has only two over-aged crude- oil lightering vessels now.
Of the vessels, three are bulk carriers and three others are oil product carriers of 39, 000 dead weight tonnage (DWT) capacity each.
All the vessels are being procured under a foreign loan funded development plan financed by the Chinese government and they are being constructed in a Chinese ship building yard.
The first vessel MV Banglar Joyjatra, a bulk carrier, is scheduled to be delivered to the BSC on July 5, 2018.
Bulk carriers Banglar Samriddhi and Banglar Arjan are scheduled to be delivered on August 25 and December 11, 2018 while oil product carriers Banglar Agrajatra, Banglar Agradoot and Banglar Agragoti are scheduled to be delivered on November 2 and December 22, 2018 and February 14, 2019 respectively.
Managing Director of Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) Commodore Yahya Syed said this at a meet the press at the BSC Conference Hall this afternoon. The meet-the-press was arranged on the occasion of its annual general meeting (AGM) scheduled for March 15 (Thursday).
The 40th AGM for the fiscal 2016-17 will be held at the Shahid Md Fazlur Rahman Munshi Auditorium of Chittagong Port Authority in the city.
Commodore Yahya Syed said the BSC is going to introduce the Feeder Service very soon between Chittagong Port and Colombo Port of Sri Lanka as well as other Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries.
That is why Bangladesh Shipping Corporation has already taken up another project to procure four new cellular container ships of 1, 200 to1,500 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit) of containers.
Having been the sole entity for carrying all government imports including fuel oil, the state-owned national flag carrier could not procure a single vessel over the last 27 years after procuring the latest vessel MV Banglar Sikha in 1991.
The organisation has decided to sell off its remaining two crude oil lightering vessels - MT Banglar Jyoti and MT Banglar Sourav as they are about 30 years old and lost the commercial viability.
BSC MD Commodore Syed said they were about to procure a new product/chemical crude oil tanker with its own financing in replacement of the existing lighter vessels.
Completing the long procurement process of the vessel they found during final inspection in December 2017 that the vessel's hull is all right but engines and machinery were not found satisfactory.
Besides, they have dropped the plan to procure the fuel lightering vessel as a vessel may not be required for fuel lightering from the Outer Anchorage of the Chittagong Port once the SPM (Single Point Mooring with Double Pipeline) project of the state-owned ERL (Eastern Refinery Ltd) is nearing completion, he said.
In stead, the BSC has undertaken the project of procuring a new mother tanker of 0.1 to 0.125 million tonnes carrying capacity, he said.
He addes that his organisation had also planned to add two LNG (liquefied natural gas) transportation vessels both of 1, 40,000 cubic meter capacity for carrying the LNG to be imported by the government to meet up the country's gas demand.
With the commissioning of the Single Point Mooring the Eastern Refinery Ltd's crude oil refining capacity will be double by 2020 than its existing capacity.
In the face of acute gas crisis that has caused severe production hampering in factories and the businesses installations the government opted to import LNG from different countries to cope with the enhanced gas demand.
For that, the government is installing a Floating Storage Re-gasification Unit (FSRU) at Matarbari of Cox's Bazaar from where the imported LNG will be supplied to the national gas grid.
The BSC MD said his organisation has undertaken another massive project of procuring six mother bulk carriers of 80, 000 tonnes capacity and another 10 bulk carriers of 10-15 thousand MT capacity each for lightering imported coal from mother vessels and bulk carriers to ensure uninterrupted coal supply chain for ensuring nation's fuel security as the government has planned to import huge quantity of coal. Executive Director (finance) of BSC Begum Yeasmin Afsana, Executive Director (technical and commercial) Md Saeed Ullah, Independent Director Md Abdul Quddus and other senior officials were present at the press meet.
