South Korea’s state-owned East West Power Co Ltd (EWP) has submitted a proposal to set up a power plant fired by imported liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The 1200MW plant in the Chattogram region will be also able to general power from fuel, according to the letter of intent submitted.
EWP proposes to built the plant as a joint venture with Pacific Energy and Fortune Enery on BOO-basis.
BOO (build, own, operate) is a public-private partnership (PPP) project model in which a private organization builds, owns and operates some facility or structure with some degree of encouragement from the government.
Experienced in thermal and renewable energy, Korea’s EWP have installed plants in several countries, including the UK, Jamaica and Indonesia.
The proposal, however, did not specify how the LNG will be sourced for the proposed plants two 600MW units.
The government, however, says that investors need to come up with sourcing of fuel for proposals to set up power plants.
According to the Bangladesh Oil and Gas Corporation (Petrobangla), the daily demand for gas in the country is 3,800 million cubic feet against a supply of 3,300 million cft.
In a bid to meet the rising demand, Bangladesh has joined the league of LNG-importing nations last year.
The Excelerate Energy-operated floating LNG terminal in Cox’s Bazar is now capable to supply between 450 and 500 million cft everyday another similar terminal by the Summit Group is expected to go to operation by April.
Bangladesh plans to raise import of LNG to 5,000 million cft by 2035, says Mohammad Hossain, director general of Power Cell, the government agency responsible for implementing power sector reform projects.
“Besides hiking import, the government plans to set up LNG-fired power plants and we have been receiving a lot of proposals for it,” he told Bangla Tribune.
The government’s grand plan for power sector reform initially stipulated 50 percent power plants to be coal-fired and the rest on other fuels. However, LNG has now got a share of 15 percent power plants.
Processes have kicked off for the construction of two 3,600MW LNG-fired plants implemented by state-owned entities, Northwest Power Generation Company and Bangladesh Power Development Board while Summit Group will build a 2,400 MW plant.
Bangladesh has recently signed a deal with India’s Reliance Energy for another 750 MW LNG-fired plant.