300MW POWER GENERATION
Minister halts 3 projects
practical offers before giving approval sought
SHAHED SIDDIQUE
Despite approval by the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), the power ministry has been re-examining the power proposals of three bidders, due to their unusual selling prices compared to the six other recently approved proposals.
In December, the Power Division approved six proposals for a total of 600 MW of power (each for 100 MW), but three proposals for a total of 300 MW capacity are still pending.
Sources said the state minister for power and energy, Nasrul Hamid, is himself examining the file after it was alleged that two of the three proposals from the Energies-XCL consortium were offering unusually low prices to the government. Again, in the third proposal for 100 MW from United Enterprise for the Jamalpur site, the price was unusually high compared to the other proposals. The state minister said: I cannot approve the proposal, which is a single bid for the Jamalpur site, as the government would have to pay Tk 1,700 crore to the bidder over the year. Therefore, being a minister, I recommend that there should be negotiations with the United Group.
United Enterprise officials, however, claimed that the price was not high, as the furnace oil-based Orion Group, Otobi and Energies, were getting higher selling prices than the proposed price.
We have offered the power price at 11.319 US cents per unit, but as you can see, some companies are taking more than this price, despite renegotiations after five years of running the plants, said one of the United Enterprise officials.
The 200-MW proposal submitted by Energies-XCL consortium is for plants to be set up in the Santahar and Bagerhat areas. The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) is doubtful whether that would be possible. On theother hand, there are many more projects coming up in the Khulna region. The BPDB has informed me that there is no need to implement the projects, the minister added. Official said six furnace oil-based projects were approved 15 days earlier as per the normal procedurethe ministry sent the proposals to the Cabinet Division for the purchases committees approval. Interestingly, however, the documents for the remaining three projects have been at the power ministry.
BPDB officials said it is not clear whether the nine projects for 900 MW power are necessary at this juncture, as time is running out for achieving the target of power generation.
The present governments term ends in 2018. Substantial generation of power would be considered a success for the government. But experts predict that there will be a shortage of power in 2018 because the projected coal-based power would not materialise by then. That is why the BPDB recently floated tenders for 10 furnace oil-based power plants with an individual capacity of 100MW each, which would commence operations before the national elections in 2018.
Among the tenders received by the BPDB, Confidence Cement submitted the lowest rate for the Ranpur site at 10.434 US cents per unit, while Doreen Power proposed 10.08 US cents for a site. For Chowmuhoni site, Energy Prima proposed 10.69 cents. For Thakurgaon site, Energy Pac submitted the lowest rate at 10.44 cents. For the Bagerhat site, Energies offered the lowest rate at 9.90 cents. For the Bogra site, Confidence Cement gave the lowest rate at 10.48 cents. For the Santaher site, Energies proposed 10.1003 cents. For the Jamalpur site, United Group submitted a rate of 11.3196 cents (single bidder). For the Feni site, Lakhdhanvi offered a rate of 10 cents per unit (single bidder). The bidding for the proposed Megnaghat site has not yet opened, sources said.
