The roar of machinery and the shuttle of vehicles on the construction site made the construction workers very busy. Bangladesh has the best weather conditions in January, which is the golden time for project construction. Zhang Wei, the construction manager of the station tank farm of the Bangladesh single point mooring project, rushed to the construction site from the camp. Zhang Wei said, this is the fifth Spring Festival I have spent here. Every Chinese New Year, I will take a New Year greeting video on the construction site and send it to my family. I am very proud to see the storage tanks and buildings designed and built by us rising from the ground.

Single point mooring project in Bangladesh

Bangladesh currently has only one refinery with an annual processing capacity of 1.5 million tons of crude oil. Because it cannot meet the demand, the Bangladeshi government plans to increase it to 4.5 million tons. At present, all the crude oil required by the refinery is imported from abroad, transported by large tankers to the coastal waters of Bangladesh, and then transferred to the refinery wharf by small tankers. In order to meet the needs of refinery expansion, the Bangladeshi government plans to build a single-point mooring and oil pipeline in the eastern region of the Bay of Bengal to transport oil from large tankers directly to the refinery.

The Bangladesh single point mooring project undertaken by China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau is the first batch of important oil and gas storage and transportation projects to be implemented in Bangladesh under the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative. Construction started in 2019. The project includes the construction of a single point mooring system, tank farms and stations, and the laying of 220 kilometers of offshore and land oil pipelines. After the project is completed, it can solve the problem that 100,000-ton oil tankers cannot dock at Chittagong, Bangladesh, and must rely on sea ships to transport crude oil. It is expected to save transportation costs by 128 million U.S. dollars per year. The project can also avoid environmental pollution caused by crude oil leakage and reduce the cost of crude oil transshipment, which is of great significance to energy conservation and environmental protection.

In order to complete the project as soon as possible, many Chinese employees chose to stay in Bangladesh during the Spring Festival. Gao Fei, a post-90s technician, said: "Many colleagues have not been home for more than a year, and many people still choose to celebrate the New Year on the project this year. Everyone sticks to overseas because they have a mission to build the project well."

In the Spring Festival of 2023, the project department has a strong sense of the year: writing Spring Festival couplets, cutting window grilles, watching the Spring Festival Gala, cooking New Year’s Eve dinner, holding rings, lucky draws and other interesting activities...More than 100 Chinese employees and more than 1,100 Bangladeshi employees celebrated the lunar calendar together Chinese New Year of the Rabbit.

Xing Jun, who is in charge of material management, said that he hadn't been home for more than a year, and he must be lying if he said he didn't want to go home. I feel very gratified to be able to celebrate the Chinese New Year with the Chinese and Bangladeshi employees on the project. Put your family in your heart, and happiness will linger around you. Sun Bijun, manager of the single point mooring project in Bangladesh, said that it is worth all the efforts to raise the level of China's pipeline installation technology to a new level and contribute to the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The Bangladeshi owner and supervisor spoke highly of the Chinese company's technical strength, construction quality, work efficiency and professionalism, and the project received attention and praise from the Bangladesh Ministry of Energy and Mines and Bangladeshi mainstream media. Hasennath, the manager of the Bangladesh project, said that the single point mooring project in Bangladesh will bring great development to the local area. I am very grateful to the builders of China and Bangladesh for their persistence and dedication.

Torkai, the representative of the German supervision company, has been with this hardworking, professional and efficient construction team in his mouth for 5 years. Speaking of the Chinese partner, he was full of praise. During the epidemic, the Chinese construction team successively created two industry records: sea-land directional drilling crossing and channel deep trenching. Now that the project is in the final stage, they have given up the Spring Festival holiday and are working conscientiously. The professionalism of Chinese engineers and technicians is admirable! Editor/He Yuting