The committee considered per tonne import price of coal at USD 140, USD 152 and USD 132 respectively for the proposed coal plants in Khulna, Chittagong and Moheskhali. The price includes freight charges, trans-portation and taxes.
A high-powered committee of the Power Division has recommended importing coal from South Africa, Australia and Indonesia for the public and private sector to use in the planned coal-fired power plants. It also suggested keeping Mozambique under consideration as they are planning to export coal in the near future.
A five member committee, headed by Additional Secretary of Power Division Tapos Kumar Roy, sub-mitted the recommendation to the power division in July.
“The committee recommended the import of coal from three countries to feed the proposed coal-fired power plants,” stated Tapos Kumar Roy
The division earlier formed the five member committee to review a report prepared by Center for En-vironmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) for coal sources exploration, coal import and transportation, for the proposed 9040 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plants likely to be installed in four locations of the country.
The government has taken a measure to set up several coal-fired power plants including the 1320MW plant at Rampal with the National Thermal Power Corporation of India, the 1320MW Matarbari plant to be funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and a 1200MW plant in Chittagong, which would be implemented under government-to-government arrangement.
It has also taken an initiative to establish coal-fired plants at Moheskhali in Cox-Bazar under joint venture and independent power producer (IPP) mechanisms, which will have the capacity to generate another 5320MW of electricity.
The Power Division on September 19, 2011 had assigned CEGIS to prepare a report on sourcing, im-port, transportation and handling of coal and the firm submitted the report in June 2012.
CEGIS prepared the report considering all aspects such as sourcing, unexpected accident, transporta-tion, expenditures, sea port, internal river route, coal ash etc. CEGIS in its recommendation preferred South Africa as the first source of coal import, followed by Aus-tralia and Indonesia, after analysing their respective reserves, import rules, transport facilities and quality.
The committee recommended being careful in using coal, which have a Gross Calorific Value (GCV) of 5800 Kcal/kg and 0.6% sulfur in it on the vulnerable power plants situated near Khulna, Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.
The imported coal can be used in different power plants of the country, after establishing a big coal terminal in Moheskhali or Sonadia to supply to different power plants. Under the power sector master plan, the government would require producing 24,000MW of electricity by 2021 and 39,000MW by 2030.The government has targeted producing around 20,000MW of electricity by 2030 from coal.
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