CHATTOGRAM, MAY 23 (V7N) - The Panama-flagged oil tanker MT Fossil arrived at the outer anchorage of Chattogram Port early Friday morning, carrying 100,000 tons of crude oil from Fujairah Port, UAE. According to senior officials from the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC), this marks only the second crude oil shipment to successfully reach Bangladesh since geopolitical conflicts escalated in the Middle East.
The arrival comes as a major relief for the country's sole state-owned oil refinery, Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) in Patenga. ERL was forced to completely shut down its crude oil distillation unit on the night of April 12 after its raw oil reserves ran entirely empty. While refined fuel imports (diesel and octane) from Singapore and Malaysia kept the national domestic supply stable during the closure, the refinery can now resume processing raw crude into 16 essential products, including LPG, petrol, octane, kerosene, diesel, and furnace oil.
To keep the refinery operational amid global supply chain disruptions, energy authorities have been forced to scout alternative maritime routes:
| Vessel Name | Cargo Volume | Origin Port | Current Status / Route |
| MT Ninemia | 100,000+ Tons | Middle East | Arrived April 21; successfully unloaded at ERL on May 6. |
| MT Fossil | 100,000 Tons | Fujairah, UAE | Currently at Chattogram outer anchorage; lightering operations underway. |
| Nordics Pollux | 100,000 Tons | Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia | Stranded in eastern Saudi Arabia due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. |
| TBA | 100,000 Tons | Yanbu, Saudi Arabia | Loading finalized for May 30 via the Red Sea coast to bypass the Persian Gulf bottleneck. |
Eastern Refinery General Manager (Operations and Planning) Md. Mustafizur Rahman confirmed that the ship is stationary at the outer anchorage. Offloading and transferring operations to smaller coastal tankers will commence immediately following the completion of customs formalities and surveyor quality checks.
The operational halt at Patenga highlights Bangladesh’s heavy reliance on foreign energy markets. The country consumes roughly 72 lakh tons of fuel oil annually, with an overwhelming 92% imported from international markets and only 8% sourced domestically through local gas fields and condensate processing.
The state-owned Eastern Refinery processes 15 lakh tons of crude oil per year, which satisfies approximately 20% of the entire country's annual fuel requirements. High-demand transport and industrial fuels—primarily diesel, followed by furnace oil, petrol, and octane—account for the bulk of national consumption. In the latest 2024–2025 fiscal year, the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) recorded total domestic sales of 68,35,341 tons of petroleum products.
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