Eastern Refinery Limited or ERL is the sole country-owned
oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt, asphalt ...
in
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million pe ...
. ERL, a subsidiary of
Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, plays a vital role in supplying around 40% of country's current
petroleum products
Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. The m ...
demand and thus maintains stability in petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) products market of the country. ERL sometimes becomes the only fall back system available, to avoid products crisis in the face of disruption of products'
import.
ERL as a profitable company in the
public sector
The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, in ...
contributes substantially to the national
exchequer
In the civil service of the United Kingdom, His Majesty’s Exchequer, or just the Exchequer, is the accounting process of central government and the government's '' current account'' (i.e., money held from taxation and other government rev ...
in the form of
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-inv ...
,
taxes
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
,
VAT etc.
History
Eastern Refinery was incorporated under Companies' Act 1913 as a
public limited company
A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company whose shares may be fre ...
in 1963 with 35% EPIDC's(
East Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...
) shares, 30% shares held by
Burmah Oil Company and the rest 35% by private entrepreneurs. From November, 1985,
Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) became the 100% share holder of the company.
Refining facilities
Refinery went on-stream with three processing units:
#
Crude Distillation
Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the he ...
Unit
#
Catalytic Reforming
Catalytic reforming is a chemical process used to convert petroleum refinery naphthas distilled from crude oil (typically having low octane ratings) into high-octane liquid products called reformates, which are premium blending stocks for high-o ...
Unit
#
Hydrodesulphurization Unit
New process units added to original configuration:
# Asphaltic
Bitumen
Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...
Plant(
Commissioned in December 1980)
#
Long Residue Visbreaker Unit (Commissioned in December 1994)
#
Mild Hydrocracker Unit (Hydrodesulphurization Unit revamped to MHC unit, commissioned in December 1994);
# MHC unit Converted to NGC (
Natural Gas Condensate
Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natur ...
) unit, Commissioned in November 2007 by ERL Engineers
See also
*
Supermajors
Big Oil is a name used to describe the world's six or seven largest publicly traded and investor-owned oil and gas companies, also known as supermajors. The term, particularly in the United States, emphasizes their economic power and influence ...
References
External links
Official siteBangladesh Petroleum Corporation official website
{{authority control
Oil refineries in Bangladesh
Government-owned companies of Bangladesh
1963 establishments in East Pakistan
Organisations based in Chittagong
Energy companies established in 1963