Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB)s generation plan is likely to face catastrophe if Petrobangla, the state owned oil and gas corporation, fail to ensure gas-LNG-coal and liquid fuel supply to power plants.
"We are ready to supply 17,000 MW of electricity from March, there is a shortfall in the supply of coal, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fuel oil (diesel, furnace oil) for power production, we want supply gurantee from Petrobangla " last week the BPDB told in a presentation in a coordination meeting at the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources chaired by the State Minister Nasrul Hamid.
The meeting observed that the demand of electricity began to increase in the country from the second week of February, which is unusual and since then the consumers in rural areas have been facing unwanted load-shedding.
Nowadays, more than 1,000 MW of load-shedding is occurring in rural areas, the Rural Electrification Board (REB)s data said adding they are having to carry out load-shedding as they have less allocations against their demand.
Last year we experienced a maximum of 4000 MW load-shedding when the load-shedding in Dhaka was three-four times (each time one hours) in a day and eight to ten hours in some rural areas, official said.
In its presentation, BPDB has said that it required around 1300-1400 mmcfd gas per day to run its gas fired (which is also a least cost plant) 11.0 capacity of power plants. They said that last year they received the maximum supply of gas, which was 1.30 billion eft against their demand of around 2.32 billion eft per day.
"We urged the Petrobangla to ensure our fuel supply thus we could be able to keep our power plants operative," a senior official of the BPDB told the Daily observer.
During the meeting officials said that energy and power sector has been severely affected since November because of the dollar crisis, which has prompted state-owned Petrobangla and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) to open L/Cs to import fuels or purchase electricity from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) locally.
"Petrobangla has failed to pay gas purchase bills to Chevron Bangladesh, which amounts to around $230 million, officials said. Meanwhile, since July 2023, BPDB has not paid any bills to Adani Power for electricity purchases. However, Adani Groups total arrears have reached around $500 million. Along with Adanis debts, the government has about Tk 25.0 crore in outstanding subsidy bills owed to IPPs," officials said adding that the government is trying to clear all arrears but it needs to pay the whole money in dollar that is the main hurdle here.
Petrobangla official said that there is no way to increase gas supply. Like last year, this year too there is uncertainty concerning fuel supply... there is a shortfall in the supply of coal, liquid natural gas (LNG) and fuel oil (diesel, furnace oil) for power production and to procure all these petroleum item, it needs dollar.
"The central bank has issued Tk 120 billion in bonds in the meanwhile. There is another Tk 150 billion due for the private sector power plants. This pressure of the debts and dollars may hamper import of fuel oil for the power plants," official said.
He said the capacity of coal fired power plant is 2,692 MW. However, coal is also an imported item, due to dollar crisis Payra and Rampal power plants failed to run full swing last year.
The estimated maximum demand for power this summer is 17,500 MW there is now shortage in production capacity to meet the power demands. However, there is a shortfall in the supply of coal, liquid natural gas (LNG) and fuel oil (diesel, furnace oil) for power production. Consumers had to suffer from extensive load-shedding in last two summers due to the inadequate supply of fuel.
Director general of the Power Divisions policy research organisation, Power Cell, Mohammad Hossain said that production plans have been drawn up keeping the maximum demand in mind. If the production cannot be ensured as planned due to fuel, there may be load-shedding.
