Dhaka seeks $5 bn foreign investment in power sector
By IANSSunday, December 13, 2009
DHAKA - Officials Sunday left for London to bid for $5 billion foreign investment in Bangladesh’s cash-strapped power sector. They will also visit Singapore and the US next month.
The move comes as Dhaka prepares to sign a pact for power purchase from India during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina likely next month.
The 11-member delegation headed by Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, adviser to prime minister on energy, hopes to attract investment for nine power projects with a total production capacity of more than 3,200 megawatt plus a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal for import of gas.
The London show will be held on Tuesday-Wednesday and officials expect to draw more than 50 power companies and also financiers, industry-related contractors, LNG terminal manufacturers and at least 20 non-resident Bangladeshis, Star Online, web site of The Daily Star said Sunday.
Dhaka is seeking investors for four coal-fired 500 MW power plants in Meghnaghat, Zajira, Khulna and Chittagong where it intends to use supercritical pressure technology for plants to ensure least greenhouse emission while the financing will be done on the basis of private-public partnership.
The coal plants will need $3 billion investment.
Coal would be imported from Indonesia or Australia unless Bangladesh’s own coal fields can produce enough for these plants. Coal will be transported through the waterways.
Dhaka says its coal mines have been over-exploited.
A coal policy has been under consideration for long.
The team will also seek investors for two large combined cycle power plants with a capacity ranging between 300 MW and 450 MW for Bibiyana-2 and Meghnaghat-2 and a 150 MW plant in Bhola. The Bhola plant will use gas from a small gas field discovered in the nineties but left unutilised.
Considering the country’s ongoing and future gas crisis in a situation where a good number of gas-based power and industrial units have already been installed, the government plans to install an LNG terminal in the Bay of Bengal, preferably near the off-shore Sangu gas field system.
