The power and energy ministry has assigned a committee to recommend ways and means to arrange fuels for generating 7000MW electricity by 2014.
   The decision came at a meeting Tuesday as uncertainty over availability of fuels like gas and furnace oil for future generation plants ran deep after Petrobangla expressed its inability to ensure gas supply to all planned gas-based power plants. Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation also said it lacks infrastructure to import additional oil at present.
   The meeting was attended by adviser to the prime minister Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and state minister for power and energy Enamul Haque.
   Energy division additional secretary Syed Manjurul Islam will head the committee, which will look for alternative arrangements for fuels.
   Replying to a question, Tawfiq said, ‘Our plan is ambitious. We might not be able to achieve one hundred per cent success, but we will continue trying.’
   Officials discussed the plans earlier explained to prime minister Sheikh Hasina for installing power plants to be fuelled by furnace oil, diesel and coal, along with the gas-based power plants which are in the pipeline, to materialise the vision to free Bangladesh from load-shedding by 2014.
   The PDB projected that around 752MW of power would be added by 2009 from the power plants initiated by the previous government.
   However, officials of Petrobangla said earlier that gas supply to the under-construction 2x120MW Siddhirganj and 150MW Shikalbaha power plants is uncertain.
   Petrobangla currently faces gas shortage of more than 400 million cubic feet per day and the existing power plants suffer from shortage of around 150mmcfd.
   PDB also projected that around 1,350MW of power would come in the 2011-2013 period from some power plants including the 450MW Bibiyana independent power plant, the 300MW Siddhirganj plant, and five 150MW plants in Bhola, Sylhet, Chandpur, Sirajganj and Khulna.
   Apart from Bhola and Sylhet, gas supply to other plants is uncertain.
   Besides, gas shortage can also affect the plan to install power plants capable of producing 1,445MW in 2012-2014.
   A high official of Petrobangla, however, told New Age that the fuel stock review committee would go through the annual projection of gas production and recommend how much gas the power sector would get. ‘The committee will recommend the percentages of gas the power, fertiliser or industrial sectors will get. Suppose the PDB gets 50 per cent of gas, then PDB will decide which power plants it wants to run with the gas,’ he said.
   The PDB also apprised the meeting of its plan to install furnace oil-based short-term rental power plants to produce around 500MW by June 2010 and get 800MW from furnace oil-based peaking power plants and 1,000MW from coal-based power plants by next two to three years.
   The meeting was told that the country would need to import around 2.5 lakh tonnes of furnace oil annually to run the rental power plants and around 21 lakh tonnes of coal would be needed for coal-based plant every year. PDB projected around 12 lakh tonnes of furnace oil will be needed annually by 2014 to run the oil based plants.
   BPC officials told the meeting that the corporation currently imports around 36 lakh tonnes of fuel oil a year and it has a storage capacity for only 58,000 tonnes.
   They said more infrastructure and storage and transportation capacity would be needed to import and use additional furnace oil for power plants.
   Besides, there is no infrastructure and storage capacity for importing coal, the meeting was told.
   ‘The fuel stock review committee, which will be represented by PDB, Petrobangla, BPC and other relevant organisations and departments, will consider all these aspects while finalising its recommendations in next few weeks,’ said a source present at the meeting.

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