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JICA may finance Moheshkhali coal-fired power plant

Gyp 111

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Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) may finance a 1200-MW coal-fired power plant at Matarbari near Moheshkhali channel in Cox's Bazar with its lowest interest rate of 0.01 per cent, reports UNB.

A senior official at the Power Division told the news agency that JICA has been conducting a feasibility study on the proposed plant with two units, each having 600 MW.

He said the Japanese donor agency has prepared a number of initial study reports on the plant which found to be very feasible for the country from economic and environmental point of view.

"But the final feasibility report will be submitted by JICA in June this year on the basis of which both the Bangladesh and Japanese governments will take their final decisions on setting up the plant in the public sector," said the official who holds a Joint Secretary-level post.

As per a primary estimation, Power Division officials said, the huge power plant will require $ 1.5 billion. The plant will be run by imported coal and its each unit production cost will be Tk 3-3.5.

Official sources said the JICA's feasibility study remains at the final stage as it is now preparing a plan for building a connecting road from the power plant to Chakoria of Chittagong-Cox's Bazar Road and also calculating the cost of the 40-km road.

The government has planned to set up 13 coal-fired power plants across the country with 7,800 MW generation capacity by 2015 in public and private sectors. All these planes will be operated by imported coals.

The plants are two 600-MW capacity each in Khulna, two 600-MW capacity each in Chittagong, one 600-MW plant in Chittagong South, four 600-MW capacity plants each in Matarbari (Cox's Bazar), one 600-MW plant at Meghnaghat near Dhaka, two 600-MW capacity plants each in Mawa near Dhaka and one 600-MW plant in Zajira (Shariatpur).

The government signed three deals to set up a number of coal-fired power plants - 1320 MW in Khulna under a joint venture with India while another two plants in Mawa and Chittagong in private sector.

Officials said JICA has been showing its keen interest in the power sector of Bangladesh and it has already funded a 412-MW combined cycle power plant project in Haripur which is now being implemented by the state-owned Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh.

But the major donors like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are not showing much interest in funding coal-fired power projects in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh plans to increase power generation to 35,000 MW by 2021 as part of Vision 2021. Thirty per cent power generation is expected from coal-fired plants.
 
A national coal policy is yet to be framed. Importing coals from abroad,is neither strategically or economically sensible nor sustainable. How much coals will be needed for 13 plants with 7800 MW?Coal is one of the most effective source we have to generate power but we need to extract our own coal & even if coal is still needed to be imported, we should import good quality coal from Indoneshia & AUS. It will also help us have good strategic & economic partnership with those countries.
 
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