Bangladesh's state-owned oil company expects to lose a record 650 million dollars this fiscal year following a sharp increase in global crude prices, the company chairman told AFP.
       
The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), the nation's lone oil selling and importing company, incurred a loss of around 110 million dollars in the first three and half months of the fiscal year beginning in July.

"But with global oil prices around 90 dollars a barrel, our loss this fiscal year would cross 45 billion taka (650 million dollars)," said company chairman Anwarul Karim in a telephone interview Monday evening.

Oil prices have risen 50 percent over the past 12 months and on Thursday the price of a barrel reached a new 90-dollar high.

"It's a tough situation for us. We have urged the government to raise the fuel prices or give us subsidy to cover the losses," he added.

In April, Bangladesh's military-backed emergency government hiked fuel prices by as much as 21 percent when world crude prices were 60 to 65 dollars a barrel.

"Since then the crude prices in the international market have been increasing everyday. As a result, the prices of refined oil in the country are far lower than the international market," Karim said.

Last year the BPC incurred a loss of around 500 million dollars after the government deliberately kept local prices low in order to control soaring inflation.

Inflation hit a 12-year high of 10.12 percent in August this year, prompting the government to delay price hikes despite pressures from the multilateral aid agencies.

Bangladesh imported 3.8 million tonnes of mostly refined oil last year at a cost of over two billion dollars. The BPC said the fuel import cost this year might hit three billion dollars, or about 18 percent of the country's annual import bill.

The South Asian country is one of the world's poorest with nearly half the 144 million population surviving on less than a dollar a day.