NRL is also called the Assam Accord Refinery because its establishment was incorporated as a promise in the 1985 agreement that ended a violent six-year agitation to eject undocumented foreigners from the State. (Photo: www.nrl.co.in)

The Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) has pipelines up to Siliguri in northern West Bengal, from where diesel is piped to Parbatipur in northern Bangladesh.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

“The political upheaval in Bangladesh and anti-India sentiments have not affected operations in the neighbouring country,” an Assam-based public sector refinery and energy retailer claimed on Friday (August 30, 2024).

The Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), based in eastern Assam’s Golaghat district, is a product of the Assam Accord of August 1985, which ended a violent six-year agitation seeking to eject “illegal immigrants” from the State.

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“There has been no impact of the situation in Bangladesh on the Indo-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline or our operations in the country. Rather, we are scaling up operations in northern Bangladesh from our Siliguri terminal and northeastern Bangladesh from terminals developed near (southern Assam’s) Silchar,” NRL’s Chairman R. Rath said. He is also the Chairman cum Managing Director of Oil India Limited, the largest shareholder of the refinery.

In March 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his former Bangladesh counterpart inaugurated the pipeline – the first cross-border energy supply line between the two countries – to transport 1 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) of high-speed diesel to Bangladesh.

From its refinery, the NRL has pipelines up to Siliguri in northern West Bengal, from where diesel is piped to Parbatipur in northern Bangladesh. Before work on this pipeline started in 2018, NRL was marketing petroleum products in this part of Bangladesh — not easily accessible from the southern part of the country due to a network of rivers — since 2015.

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“The economy of northern Bangladesh is dependent on farm-based industries and the demand for diesel is highest during the winter months when the rivers run shallow,” NRL’s officials said.

The 6 MMTPA refinery’s plans to set up retail outlets in the western part of the geographically closer Myanmar, however, have been paused by the ongoing civil war in the country. The project was at an advanced stage of implementation when the conflict broke out in the country in February 2021.

“Some discussion is underway with Myanmar,” Dr. Rath said after the 31st annual general meeting during which the refinery declared a total dividend payout of ₹710.66 crore for 2023-24, representing 31.9% of NRL’s profit after tax for the fiscal.

He also said NRL’s first-of-its-kind bioethanol plant based on bamboo feedstock is expected to be commissioned within a month. This plant and a polypropylene plant are among the projects entailing an investment of more than ₹45,000 crore.