Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) a subsidiary of the bangladesh petroleum corporation (BPC) and the only petroleum refinery plant in Bangladesh. It is a public limited company incorporated under the companies act 1913. The project was initiated in 1963 by a group of Pakistani entrepreneurs. The refinery complex was installed on the bank of the karnafuli river at a cost of Tk 151.7 million. It went into operation in 1968. This refinery has the capacity of refining 34,000 barrels of crude oil per day (i.e., 1.5 million m tons per year).

Basically, it is a fuel refinery, producing different kinds of petroleum products along with some special non-fuel products used in other industries. ERL processes mainly two types of crude oil - Arabian Light Crude (ALC) from Saudi Arabia and Murban Crude from Abu Dhabi. ERL also processes a small quantity (about 200-250 bbl/day) of oil from Haripur gas field. Refined products supplied by ERL meet the demand for most of the petroleum products of the country except kerosene, JP-1 (Jet Propulsion-1) and diesel. These are imported as finished products to supplement the deficit.

Eastern Refinery produces 17 petroleum products such as RG (Refinery Gas), LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), SBP (Special Boiling Point Solvent), MS (Motor Spirit), Naphtha, SKO (Superior Kerosene Oil), MTT (Mineral Turpentine), JP-1, JBO (Jute Batching Oil), HSD (High Speed Diesel), LSDO (Low Sulphur Diesel Oil), LDO (Light Diesel Oil), HSFO (High Sulphur Fuel Oil), LSFO (Low Sulphur Furnace Oil) and Bitumen. Some of these, such as SBP, JBO, MTT and Bitumen are non-fuel products. Some of the ER products are produced only on demand. [Rafiqul Islam]