Signing ceremony of the MoU between Technip and Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation

For the extension of the Eastern Refinery Limited ERL2 (article here)
Speech of HE Sophie Aubert, Ambassador of France to Bangladesh

PNG

Dear Honourable Ministers,
Dear Chief guest, Special guest, and dear friends,

I am very pleased to be here today.
Today France is celebrating its victory Day, I mean the end of World War 1, 11th of November 1918.

11th of November 2015 here in Bangladesh is also a great day, as we signed this morning the contract between Thalès and BTRC, regarding the first Bangladeshi satellite, Bangabhundu satellite, and as now we have this signing ceremony taking place.
This is a real satisfaction for me.

The memorandum of understanding between Bangladesh Petroleum Commission and Technip is a very important and necessary step towards the finalization of the process leading us to the extension of Eastern Refinery Limited ERL.

As it was said before, the refinery we are talking about was financed in 1965 by the French Government and it was built at that time by Technip. Technip is also the company which upgraded the refinery in 1991.

Today, it is a real satisfaction for my Embassy to consider that Technip wants to come back to Bangladesh through a project based on the best high quality and environmental friendly technology, EURO5 that we have developed in Europe. And that’s why my Government is fully supportive of the project.

As we all know Bangladesh is most concerned by both the necessities to increase power production and to anticipate the consequences of climate change on the country.

This is the reason why, just a few days before COP21, the international framework for negotiations on climate change, the decision of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to go forward with Technip is highly appreciated by my Government.

This choice is most welcome all the more as it is coherent with the effort that all the countries will have to make, in order to protect our planet from the increase of the temperature provoked by greenhouse gas emissions.

Technip illustrates our presence in Bangladesh : we are not that much on the front page of the newspapers, but this doesn’t mean that we are not present.

France and Bangladesh are friendly countries since the inception of Bangladesh.

Some French companies like Technip, Sanofi, Lafarge and Thales have accompanied Bangladesh since the very beginning of the country and even before.

We have developed with Bangladesh a very interesting cooperation on fields which are in my view fundamental for the future of the country : oceanography, hydrography, meteorology, seismology.

Considering for example hydrography, our bilateral cooperation on this field contributed to the definition of your maritime boarder in favour of Bangladesh before India and Myanmar.

Seismology is another area of cooperation that we have because it is essential for Bangladesh to be able to protect itself from earthquake. We are proud to have a Bangladeshi student completing his PhD at the Institute of Physics of the globe, in Strasbourg.

We will keep on working with Bangladesh on these issues, as we will also develop new cooperation, all related to vital sectors, in order to contribute to shape the Bangladesh vision for 2021 and beyond.

To be short, we want to stand side by side with Bangladesh in order to help the country hand over its big challenges.

Some of our actions can be supported by public funds and others will go through commercial relations. That’s a very positive point for both Bangladesh and France.

I hope that the next gates towards the building of the refinery will be crossed over soon and I hope to have the opportunity to lay the first stone of the refinery very soon.

I thank you for your attention./.

Dernière modification : 16/11/2015

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