Eastern Refinery Limited, or ERL, is a state-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 products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, Bitumen, asphalt base, ...
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 and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...
. ERL, a subsidiary of
Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation
Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation () (BPC) is a government agency in Bangladesh to import, distribute and market oil and petroleum products. Amin-Ul-Ahsan is the chairperson of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation.
History
Founded in 1976 by Presi ...
, supplies around 40% of the 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. Most ...
demand and thus maintains stability in the petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) products market of the country. ERL sometimes becomes the only fallback system available to avoid product crises in the face of disruption of products'
imports.
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, pu ...
, contributes substantially to the national
exchequer
In the Civil Service (United Kingdom), 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 ''Transaction account, current account'' (i.e., mon ...
in the form of
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders, after which the stock exchange decreases the price of the stock by the dividend to remove volatility. The market has no control over the stock price on open on the ex ...
,
taxes
A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...
,
VAT
A value-added tax (VAT or goods and services tax (GST), general consumption tax (GCT)) is a consumption tax that is levied on the value added at each stage of a product's production and distribution. VAT is similar to, and is often compared wi ...
etc.
History
Eastern Refinery was incorporated under the Indian 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 of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is a limited liability co ...
in 1963 with 35% EPIDC's (
East Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation) shares, 30% shares held by
Burmah Oil Company
The Burmah Oil Company was a leading British oil company which was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1966, Castrol was acquired by Burmah, which was renamed Burmah-Castrol. BP Amoco purchased the company in 2000.
History
The c ...
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 first went on-stream with three processing units:
#
Crude distillation
Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...
Unit
#
Catalytic reforming
Catalytic reforming is a chemical process used to convert petroleum naphtha, naphthas from crude oil into liquid products called reformates, which are premium "blending stocks" for high-octane gasoline. The process converts low-octane linear hydr ...
Unit
#
Hydrodesulfurization
Hydrodesulfurization (HDS), also called hydrotreatment or hydrotreating, is a catalytic chemical process widely used to desulfurization, remove sulfur (S) from natural gas and from oil refinery, refined petroleum products, such as gasoline, g ...
Unit
New process units added to the original configuration:
# Asphaltic
bitumen
Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...
plant (
Commissioned in December 1980)
#
Long residue visbreaker Unit (Commissioned in December 1994)
# Hydrodesulfurization unit revamped to
mild hydrocracking (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 natura ...
) unit, commissioned in November 2007 by ERL engineers
See also
*
Supermajors
Big Oil is a name sometimes 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 ...
References
{{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