A company with $100 in paid-up capital. No website. No track record. No experience in energy infrastructure. Yet it was chosen — over qualified international firms — to receive a stake in a $305 million government oil contract in Bangladesh.
This is not a hypothetical. It happened. It was documented. And the company had one thing the other bidders did not: a hidden connection to the man who controlled Bangladesh’s entire energy sector.
His name is Nasrul Hamid Bipu. For over a decade — from 2009 to 2024 — he served as Bangladesh’s State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources under the Awami League government. During that time, Bangladesh spent over Tk 1.66 trillion (approximately $15 billion USD) on energy imports. Nasrul Hamid was the gatekeeper for every major contract.
And hiding inside some of those contracts — holding shares, collecting commissions, absorbing millions — was a network of shell companies tied directly to his family.
How the Playbook Works: A Ghost Company in Singapore
In March 2021, the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) — the government’s sole petroleum import and distribution agency — signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a three-company consortium to build Bangladesh’s largest-ever LPG terminal at Matarbari deep-sea port.
The consortium was made up of:
- Marubeni Corporation — Japanese trading giant with $1+ billion in existing contracts from Nasrul Hamid’s ministry
- Vitol Asia — Singapore-based trading arm of Dutch-Swiss energy giant Vitol, previously fined $164 million by the US Department of Justice for bribing officials in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico
- PowerCo International — a Bangladeshi company registered in Singapore with a paid-up capital of exactly $100
The deal: the consortium would build a one-million-tonne LPG terminal at a cost of $305 million on a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) model. Vitol and PowerCo would together hold a 30% combined stake — meaning PowerCo, a company with $100 to its name, would theoretically need to contribute $45.75 million in capital.
PowerCo had no prior experience in energy infrastructure. No known track record in commodity trading. No public presence. When a journalist visited its head office in Banani, Dhaka, they found three employees — including a receptionist — who could not name their own managing director.
“He did not know about BPC’s decision. When asked about the company’s share and investment in the consortium, he sought more time to comment. He also failed to name the company’s managing director.”
— The Business Standard, February 2021, reporting on PowerCo’s Chief Operating Officer Murad Hassan
Industry insiders immediately flagged the absurdity: How does a company with $100 in capital hold a stake in a $305 million project?
The answer, as journalists would discover, was that PowerCo wasn’t there to provide capital. It was there to collect.
Follow the Ownership Documents
Registered with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), PowerCo International listed its principal activities as “management consultancy services and wholesale trade in a variety of goods.” Its principal shareholder was one Md Kamruzzaman Chowdhury.
Investigators cross-referenced Kamruzzaman’s identity documents and social media. The finding: Kamruzzaman Chowdhury is the maternal uncle of Nasrul Hamid Bipu.
Netra News — a Bangladeshi investigative outlet — obtained a recorded conversation with Kamruzzaman, in which he openly admitted he had no idea what he had signed:
“They are my relatives. I am their maternal uncle. They asked me to sign [the documents], I signed. I didn’t even read closely what I was signing.”
“I don’t know the details. In fact, I don’t know anything. I was told, ‘You have some shares in this company, sign here’ — I signed. Then, they told me, ‘You no longer have shares, sign here’ — I signed. That’s it. I don’t know anything beyond that.”
— Kamruzzaman Chowdhury, in recorded conversation with Netra News
A classic frontman. Signed in, signed out. The real controlling interest remained hidden.
The company’s link to Nasrul Hamid ran even deeper. PowerCo’s alternative director listed in Singapore filings was Md Murad Hassan — who simultaneously served as CEO of Delco Business Associate Ltd, a sister concern of the Hamid Group, the family conglomerate of which Nasrul Hamid had previously served as Managing Director.
PowerCo’s managing director, Nabil Khan, was an Indian national running a Dubai-based investment company — and a Facebook friend of Nasrul Hamid’s younger brother, Enthekhabul Hamid.
In total, the web connecting PowerCo to the minister controlling the contract included:
- His maternal uncle as founding shareholder (later swapped out)
- A CEO who simultaneously ran his family’s business
- A managing director who was a personal friend of his brother
- No declared disclosure of any conflict of interest
When the Story Broke — The Minister’s Response Was Threats
In February 2021, a month before the BPC-PowerCo MoU was formally signed, The Business Standard (TBS) published a report headlined: “$100 co, disputed Vitol chosen for largest LPG terminal.”
The report did not directly name Nasrul Hamid. It didn’t need to. The minister clearly understood what it meant.
His response was to mount intense pressure on TBS to unpublish the article — and to harass the journalist who wrote it, labelling him a “Shibir man” (a deeply damaging accusation in Bangladesh, implying affiliation with Islamist militants).
The reporter’s professional reputation was attacked. The story was suppressed under pressure. The MoU was signed one month later anyway.
This is how Bangladesh’s energy sector corruption operated for fifteen years: not in secret back rooms, but in the open — because the people doing the exposing could be silenced, threatened, and professionally destroyed.
The Broader Syndicate: Vitol, Gunvor, and the LNG Pipeline
PowerCo was not an isolated incident. It was part of a systematic pattern across Bangladesh’s entire fuel import infrastructure.
Bangladesh began importing LNG (liquefied natural gas) from the spot market in 2020. From that point until 2024, four companies dominated virtually all spot-market LNG contracts:
- Vitol Asia (Singapore) — 30 of 74 cargoes procured as of October 2024
- Gunvor Singapore — 15 cargoes
- TotalEnergies (Switzerland) — 14 cargoes
- Excelerate Energy (USA) — 10 cargoes
Vitol and Gunvor alone supplied over 60% of all LNG to Bangladesh during this period.
Both companies have been sanctioned by the United States Department of Justice for bribery:
- Vitol: Fined $130 million in 2013 and a further $164 million in December 2020 for bribing officials in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico
- Gunvor: Fined $660 million in March 2024 for securing contracts in Ecuador with bribes
Both companies operated in Bangladesh through a single local representative: Ejazur Rahman. The same man served as the Bangladesh representative for both Vitol Asia and Gunvor — the two suppliers that dominated the market. Petrobangla sources noted that Ejazur’s commercial office was located directly opposite Petrobangla’s own headquarters.
According to Prothom Alo investigations, Ejazur reportedly went into hiding after the August 2024 fall of the Awami League government. He could not be reached for comment.
All roads led to the same minister. All commissions passed through the same network. All accountability was absent.
The Scale: Tk 1.66 Trillion Over Six Years
To understand the magnitude of what was happening, consider the numbers:
| Fiscal Year | LNG Import Spend |
|---|---|
| 2018-19 to 2024-25 (cumulative) | Tk 1.66 trillion (~$15 billion) |
| FY 2024-25 alone | Tk 426.43 billion (~$3.9 billion) |
| Total fuel imports FY 2024-25 | Tk 1.43 trillion (~$13 billion) |
| Refined oil: Tk 529.64 billion | Crude oil: Tk 133.8 billion | |
| LNG + LPG: Tk 599.06 billion | Coal: Tk 170.14 billion |
This is Bangladesh’s largest single category of government expenditure. It dwarfs education, health, and infrastructure combined. And for fifteen years, the allocation of these contracts ran through a single political gatekeeper and his family network.
Bonikbarta reported in January 2026 that industry insiders believe “large sums were paid as kickbacks under the guise of commissions or fees, with much of the money settled overseas.”
After the Revolution: Did Anything Change?
Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh on August 5, 2024 following a student-led mass uprising. The interim government of Muhammad Yunus took power. Nasrul Hamid — one of the architects of the energy syndicate — fled the country.
Bangladeshis in the energy sector expected a reckoning.
What they got instead was complicated.
The interim government’s adviser for the Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, claimed the old syndicate had been dismantled:
“The syndicate that existed in the energy sector has been completely dismantled. Previously there were six or seven suppliers; now there are 25. Costs may have risen but LNG import volumes have also increased.”
But when asked directly whether relatives of Nasrul Hamid — who were embedded in the LNG supply chain — were still receiving contracts under the new government, the adviser gave a telling answer:
“We have no such documents.”
Not a denial. A claim of ignorance.
Meanwhile, Prothom Alo reported that despite Vitol Asia not receiving fresh contracts after August 2024, both TotalEnergies and Gunvor were awarded two new contracts each in October 2024 — meaning companies that supplied Bangladesh for years under Nasrul Hamid’s watch continued supplying Bangladesh after his fall. The syndicate’s preferred vendors simply kept winning.
Bonikbarta’s January 2026 investigation found a darker conclusion: despite the change in government, “industry insiders allege that syndicate activity by various vested interests has intensified and import costs have risen.”
The Systematic Problem: How Bangladesh’s Energy Sector Was Structurally Corrupted
What happened with PowerCo and the LNG syndicate was not an accident. It was the product of deliberate structural design over 15 years:
1. The Approved Vendor List Was Engineered
Petrobangla maintains a list of 23 companies approved to supply LNG from the spot market. According to insiders, this list was deliberately constructed to exclude genuine competition. Companies not connected to the syndicate would participate in tenders, win nothing, and eventually stop bidding — having concluded the game was rigged against them.
2. The Single Representative Model
Having one man (Ejazur Rahman) represent both the two largest suppliers (Vitol and Gunvor) eliminated any real competition between them. They effectively coordinated through the same agent to divide Bangladesh’s LNG market between themselves.
3. G2G Contracts as Cover
Some contracts were structured as “Government-to-Government” (G2G) deals — meaning they bypassed competitive tender entirely. G2G arrangements with countries like India, Qatar, and Oman provided legitimate cover for the overall import system, while spot market contracts were distributed through the syndicate.
4. The Price Never Fell When Global Prices Did
Throughout the Awami League era, when global fuel prices dropped, Bangladeshi consumers saw no corresponding relief. BPC consistently cited import costs as justification for maintaining high retail prices. The gap between global market prices and what BPC paid its syndicate suppliers — and the downstream kickbacks that disappeared offshore — is where billions vanished.
5. Domestic Gas Was Deliberately Neglected
Bangladesh has significant domestic gas reserves. A 2017 Gas Sector Master Plan recommended major investment in domestic gas exploration. Instead of implementing it, the government turned to LNG imports — creating the demand that the syndicate then profited from.
By 2024, Bangladesh had spent over Tk 2 trillion on LNG imports since 2019. Investment in domestic gas exploration remained negligible. The Yunus interim government’s own master plan now projects $25-30 billion in LNG infrastructure spending through 2050 — potentially the next generation of the same systemic trap.
The Legal Standard: What Experts Said
When Netra News shared their findings on the PowerCo deal with James S. Henry, an anti-corruption expert and fellow at Yale University’s Global Justice Program, his assessment was unambiguous:
“The allegation here is that we have a classic case of a consortium that gets awarded a major contract, and one of the key minority players in the consortium turns out to be directly related, in corporate ownership, to close family members of a minister sitting in power. If that’s substantiated and holds up, that’s a pretty clear cut conflict of interest — potentially a violation of Bangladesh’s own anti-corruption laws.”
“This is a typical case of influence peddling that I have seen time and time again while investigating corruption cases in developing countries. There is a strong prima facie case for a much more substantial anti-corruption investigation by law enforcement agencies.”
That investigation never came — not under the Awami League government, and not yet under the interim government that replaced it.
The Pattern Bangladesh Must Recognize
The PowerCo story is not unique to the energy sector. It is the model of how Bangladesh’s state machinery was captured under fifteen years of AL rule — and potentially continues to operate under new management:
- Step 1: Place political loyalist or family member in a key ministry or regulatory role
- Step 2: Create or designate an “approved” vendor list that artificially limits competition
- Step 3: Insert a shell company connected to the political figure into winning consortiums
- Step 4: Use international companies with bribery records (Vitol, Gunvor, Marubeni) as the professional cover — they provide legitimacy; the shell company provides the extraction mechanism
- Step 5: Suppress any journalism that exposes the arrangement, using threats, professional attacks, and legal pressure
- Step 6: When exposed, flee the country — and watch the same vendors continue winning contracts under the new government
Bangladesh’s foreign currency reserves bled for years. Consumers paid inflated fuel prices. Domestic gas exploration was suppressed to maintain import dependency. And a minister’s uncle’s company — with $100 to its name and three employees who couldn’t name their own CEO — held a stake in a $305 million national infrastructure project.
What Accountability Looks Like
The questions that demand answers from Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the interim government:
- Has the BPC-PowerCo-Vitol-Marubeni MoU been formally cancelled?
- Has Nasrul Hamid been charged with corruption offences related to the energy sector?
- Have the kickback flows through Vitol, Gunvor, and other suppliers been forensically audited?
- Is Ejazur Rahman — the shared representative of Vitol and Gunvor — being investigated?
- Have the 23 approved LNG suppliers been independently reviewed for political connections to the current government?
- What happened to the Tk 25 crore already spent on feasibility studies for the PowerCo-linked LPG terminal?
A country that spent $15 billion on energy imports in six years deserves answers to every single one of these questions.
So far, the silence has been deafening.
Sources
- The Business Standard: “How Nasrul Hamid cut $300m LPG project primary deal for his $100 shell firm” (August 28, 2024)
- Netra News: “Power corruption: All the state minister’s men” (2021)
- Prothom Alo: “Nasrul Hamid behind LNG business syndicate” (November 8, 2024)
- Bonikbarta: “Fuel imports worth BDT 1.5 trillion major source of graft, capital flight” (January 29, 2026)
- US Department of Justice: Vitol settlement ($164 million, December 2020)
- US Department of Justice: Gunvor settlement ($660 million, March 2024)
- Yale Global Justice Program: James S. Henry commentary (via Netra News, 2021)
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