The 130-km long Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline (IBFPL) is likely to be commissioned in February.
The international oil pipeline, IBFPL, will carry fuel from Numaligarh Refinery Ltd’s (NRL) marketing terminal to the Parbatipur depot of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC). It is to be noted that the 130-km IBFPL was held in September 2018 in the presence of the Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh through video conferencing.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his meeting with Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina in 2017 had agreed to finance this pipeline with a capacity of one million metric tonne per annum.
The total project cost for the 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 the Bangladesh portion is being funded by the Indian government as grant-in-aid.
According to a recent report, prepared by the Assam Assembly on the visit of a delegation of the legislators to the neighbouring country, Bangladesh will start importing gas and oil from NRL later this year.
The delegation met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who said that “importing fuel oil from India through the pipeline” will start this year, it added.