Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has formed a three-member investigation committee to assess damage to the national fuel pipeline and determine the amount of oil stolen after several thousand litres were siphoned off by piercing the Chittagong–Dhaka supply line in Mirsarai.
The committee, formed on Saturday and headed by BPC Manager (Commerce and Operations) Mizanur Rahman, has been asked to submit its report within seven working days.
Meanwhile, BPC Deputy General Manager (Administration and Finance) Mahbubur Rahman has filed a case with Mirsarai Police Station in connection with the incident. Three people have been named in the case, along with four to five unidentified individuals. One suspect, identified as Absar, has been arrested and sent to jail.
According to locals, oil theft had reportedly been going on for some time by illegally tapping the underground pipeline beneath a makeshift tin shed near Hadifkirhat along the Dhaka–Chittagong highway.
On Thursday morning, the illegal connection reportedly burst due to increased pressure in the pipeline, causing fuel to spill into the surrounding area. The incident came to light when locals began collecting oil in containers. Following the incident, police, fire service personnel and BPC officials rushed to the spot and sealed off the area.
The exact quantity of stolen oil has yet to be determined. However, the incident has raised concerns over whether an organised group was involved and whether the theft was linked to previous losses of fuel from depots.
Sources said the 250km-long Chittagong–Dhaka petroleum pipeline, built at a cost of around Tk3,700 crore and implemented by army engineers, runs from Patenga in Chittagong to Godnail in Narayanganj, extending to Fatullah in Dhaka. The pipeline has already transported lakhs of tonnes of fuel.
While transporting fuel by water tanker from Chittagong to Narayanganj takes at least 24 hours, the pipeline delivers fuel within four hours. The discovery of oil theft from such a high-security, technologically advanced pipeline has therefore raised serious questions.
Mirsarai Police Station Officer-in-Charge Farida Yasmin said a case has been filed over the incident and the owner of the house involved has been arrested and produced before court.
“Police operations are ongoing to arrest the remaining suspects,” she added.
The incident has caused widespread concern both locally and within the petroleum sector. Industry insiders said the theft should not be viewed as an isolated or minor crime and stressed the need to determine whether it was the work of an organised gang.
They warned that failure to investigate whether this method of siphoning fuel is linked to previous large-scale losses could lead to more serious consequences in the future.
At present, around three million tons of fuel—out of the country’s total annual consumption of seven million tons—are used in the Dhaka and Comilla regions. Previously, most of this fuel was transported by private tankers via waterways, where losses due to theft and system inefficiencies were common. BPC traditionally accepted a system loss of up to 17% in tanker transport, amounting to significant financial losses each year.
The pipeline project was implemented primarily to eliminate such losses. With a capacity of 5 million tons, the pipeline is currently supplying around 3 million tons of fuel annually. Since its inauguration on August 16, fuel supply through the pipeline has reportedly reduced system loss to zero.
Fuel transported through the pipeline reaches Godnail and Fatullah via Barura in Comilla, where a state-of-the-art automated depot controls intake, storage and supply using advanced digital systems. The entire pipeline is monitored and operated through the SCADA Master Control Station at the dispatch terminal in Chittagong, with an optical fibre network enabling real-time monitoring and leak detection.
A BPC official said the underground pipeline passes beneath 22 rivers and canals and is supported by nine pumping stations along the route.
BPC previously spent around Tk326 crore annually to transport fuel by tanker from Chittagong to Dhaka. The pipeline has reduced that cost to around Tk90 crore, saving the corporation at least Tk226 crore each year. Officials had earlier said the modern pipeline left no scope for theft—an assertion now being seriously questioned following the Mirsarai incident.
