Staff Correspondent
A vessel laden with 20,000 tonnes of coal, the first lot of it for the country's first mega 1320-MW Payra coal-fired Power Plant, has reached the jetty of the Payra port recently, official said.
The Chinese vessel carried the coal from Indonesian firm PT Bayan Resources Tbk. It set sail for Bangladesh on September 10. The second coal cargo is expected to reach Payra jetty in October.
“It is a memorable day for us as it has been the first coal vessel to reach the jetty of our seaport,” said Commodore Md Saidur Rahman, a member for harbour and marine at the Payra Port Authority (PPA).
The PPA managed all the works related to bringing the coal from Indonesia to Bangladesh, he said.
“The efforts would give a boost to the steps taken by the government to speed up industrialisation in the area.”
Bangladesh’s Bencon Seatrans Ltd imported the coal as port agent with the help of Germany’s Oldendorff Carriers Ltd through Xin Hai Tong 8, a bulk carrier of Hong Kong.
Mohammad A Malek, managing director of Bencon Seatrans, said his company would import all the coal needed for the Payra power plant through the port.
Project Director, Shah Abdul Maula, told Bangladesh Post ‘The first shipment of coal has been sent from Indonesia on September, 9 night. If work goes on without any disruption, the first 660-megawatt (MW) unit will start generating electricity by this December, and the second unit with same capacity, is expected go into operation by June 2020,’
‘Meanwhile, the construction work of the power plant is going on at a faster pace. An estimated 86 percent work has been completed of the project and hopefully the operation of the plant can be started on schedule,’ he added.
Bangladesh-China Power Company Ltd (BCPCL), a joint venture of Bangladesh's North-West Power Generation Company Ltd (NWPGCL) and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) are implementing the project at a cost of about $2 billion. The power plant is being built with financial support from China's Exim Bank.
Earlier, Bangladesh-China Power Company signed a deal with an Indonesian firm at a hotel in Dhaka on June, 17, 2019 to import the coal from the Southeastern Asian country for the power plant. The coal transportation agreement (CTA) was signed on June 7, 2019.
The plant will use sub-bituminous coal, whose calorific value is 4700-5500 Kilo cal. This type of coal is chiefly abundant in Indonesia and Australia.
The official said that all civil, structural work and equipment installation has been done for the first unit, and now pre-commissioning activities are going on before final commissioning. The installation work for the second unit is also going on fast.
According to NWPGCL, all major equipment for the second unit have reached the project site and the superstructure work is going on. The construction work for coal jetty, coal unloader, coal conveyor gallery, steel structure and civil construction work has already been done. Besides, the construction work of power block area, balance of plant (BOP) and water intake has been completed.
The government has also allocated 998.77 acres of land to the NWPGCL for implementing the project on a turnkey basis by using eco-friendly ultra-super critical technology.
According to the Power System Master Plan, the government plans to generate around 50 per cent of the country's overall electricity from coal. To implement the plan, the government will have to generate around 12,000 megawatts of electricity from coal by 2024, 20,000 MW by 2030, and 30,000 MW by 2041.
But the country now has only three coal-fired power plants with a total generation capacity of only 524 MW.
The government has undertaken a number of coal-and LNG-based power plants across the country to generate 24,000 MW electricity by 2021, 40,000 MW by 2030 and 60,000 MW by 2041.
Currently, the government is working on three major power generation hubs at Payra in Patuakhali, Maheshkhali and Matarbari in Cox's Bazar.
The 1,200 MW coal-fired power plant at Matarbari is expected to go into operation by 2023. On the other hand, work is going on to set up a 1320 MW power plant at Rampal in Bagerhat. Meanwhile, work to build a nuclear power plant at Rooppur in Pabna is underway.
