India to export diesel from Numaligarh refinery to Bangladesh

India would export diesel from Assam-based Numaligarh refinery to Bangladesh, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Saturday.

"India will export diesel from Numaligarh Refinery in Assam to Parbatipur in north Bangladesh. First we will export diesel by train on experimental basis before connecting through pipelines," said Pradhan after discussions on bilateral cooperation in the energy sector with Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, energy adviser to the Bangladesh prime minister.

Eyeing the Bangladesh market in a big way for exporting petroleum products, he said a 200-km-long pipeline would be laid to export the products to the neighbouring country.

The minister said Chennai and Paradip ports of India would be interconnected with Chittagong and Mongla ports of Bangladesh for export of the petroleum products.

He said petroleum products can also be exported to Bangladesh from Paradip oil refinery scheduled to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.

"There is also preliminary discussion over to lay gas pipeline to Bangladesh from Odisha as LNG terminal is being set up here," said Pradhan.

Informing that Bangladesh has allocated to oil blocks for oil exploration, he said there had been discussions on carrying out a preliminary survey soon and initiate drilling in the blocks after the rainy season.

With the commissioning of the Paradip refinery, Pradhan said that India would be once again in a position to export petroleum products to Bangladesh. In this regard, he expressed keenness of India in setting up of marketing infrastructure in Bangladesh.

He said the officials of oil corporations had recently visited Bangladesh to discuss various energy sector projects of mutual interest to both nations.

Chowdhury said both the countries discussed to fix a timeline over oil exportation from Numaligarh refinery and other emerging issues including laying gas pipeline from Dhamra in Odisha.