The head of Saudi Aramco denied it was considering construction of an oil refinery in Bangladesh after a senior Dhaka energy official said Monday the proposal had been raised last week. “This is not true. There is no discussion at all about refineries in Bangladesh,” Khalid Al-Falih, Aramco's chief executive officier, told reporters in Riyadh. Earlier the Bangladesh energy official had said the proposal to build the refinery at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion was made when a Saudi Aramco delegation visited Dhaka last week and met officials at the ministry of power and energy. “The ministry will examine the proposal and take a decision as soon as possible,” the official told Reuters, requesting anonymity. When told of the Aramco CEO's denial, the same official stood by his earlier remarks and said a junior energy minister had asked the ministry to proceed with an examination of the plan. Aramco supplies crude oil to Bangladesh regularly, the official said. Bangladesh's state-run Eastern Refinery Limited in Chittagong port city has a capacity to refine 1.4 million tons of crude a year. Bangladesh will double its oil imports to nearly 6.5 million tons in the fiscal year ending June 2012 to run oil-fired power generating plants and meet increased demand from manufacturers. The demand for fuel oil in Bangladesh increases annually by more than 6 percent a year, officials said. The country's overall trade deficit widened by over 23 percent to $1.81 billion in the first quarter (Q1) of the current fiscal year (FY) following higher import of fuel oils, officials said Sunday. “Higher import of petroleum products is mainly responsible for widening of the trade deficit during the period under review,” a senior official at the Bangladesh Bank said. He also said the import of other essential items including industrial raw materials, intermediate goods and capital machinery also increased significantly during the period to meet the domestic demand. The overall trade deficit rose to $1.81 billion in July-September period of the FY 12 from $1.47 billion during the corresponding period in the previous fiscal, according to the central bank statistics. The BB official also said the rising trend in fuel oil import is likely to continue in the coming months to meet the growing demand for oil-based power plants across the country. The petroleum products' import increased by over 100 percent to $1.19 billion during the period under review compared to $592.08 million in the corresponding period in the previous fiscal. “The overall trade deficit may ease slightly in the coming months largely because of a falling trend in import of food grains, including rice, under a seasonal impact,” the central bank official said. During the period, export earnings stood at $6.20 billion against the import payments of $8.01 billion, the BB data showed. The central bank official also said food import declined during the period as the country has built a large stock of the main staple rice after a bumper Boro crop harvest in May this year. The BB figures show that import of food grains, such as rice and wheat, fell by 3.19 per cent to $341.07 million in the Q1 over the same period last fiscal. The country's current account balance decreased by nearly 51 percent to $307 million in the Q1 of FY12.
