130-km long Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline likely to be commissioned in February

Guwahati, Jan 8: The 130-km long international oil pipeline, known as the Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline (IBFPL), which will carry fuel from Assam-based Numaligarh Refinery Ltd's (NRL) marketing terminal at Siliguri in West Bengal to the Parbatipur depot of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is likely to be commissioned by February, said reports.

The seed of the ambitious project was sown in 2017, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his meeting with Hasina in 2017 had agreed to finance this pipeline with a capacity of one million metric tonne per annum (MMTPA).

Following the ceremonial inauguration of the IBFPL which was held in September 2018 was completed on December 12 last year. The total project cost for construction of the IBFPL is Rs 377.08 crore. Out of this, NRL's investment is Rs 91.84 crore for the India portion of the pipeline, while the remaining Rs 285.24 crore for Bangladesh portion is being funded by the Indian government as grant-in-aid, said reports.

Apart from common heritage and shared history, the geographical proximity of India to Bangladesh has made it one of its biggest trading partners. As the ties between the two South Asian countries flourishes so does the trade and commerce of India’s north eastern regions including Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and Meghalaya.

A delegation from Assam who visited Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in a report stated that Bangladesh will start importing gas and oil from NRL later this year.

A long term agreement for selling High Speed Diesel (HSD) from India to Bangladesh through the IBFPL was signed between NRL and BPC in April 2017. Later in October of the same year, the state-run NRL signed another 15-year agreement with the BPC for export of gas oil (diesel) to the neighbouring nation. In NRL, Oil India Ltd has 69.63 per cent stake, while Assam Government and Engineers India Ltd have 26 per cent and 4.37 per cent holding respectively.