Staff Reporter :
Poor coal unloading facility in the Rampal Power Plant is likely to hamper production of electricity as it is proposed to commission the project next month.
Earlier, the ministry concerned has decided to run the coal-based power plant in the next month to ease the country’s ongoing power shortage.
Meanwhile, the government has introduced load-shedding across the country and industrial units are also facing the problems, which interrupted the production too.
However, the unit-1 of 1,320MW power plant will need around 5,000 tonnes of coal daily to generate 660MW of electricity.
According to an official of the power plant preferring anonymity said, “Delay while unloading the supplied coal poses a great risk of reducing electricity production and even this may lead to interrupt the electricity generation.”
Around 55,000 tonnes of coal from the mother vessel got unloaded for over a long 1.5 months, instead of standard 7 days, which cost over Tk 12 crore additionally as demurrage, the official said adding that at least 45 smaller vessels are required to carry all the imported coals from the mother vessel in the first lot.
The delay in coal unloading at the jetty facilities already forced the Government to pay additional money as demurrage for the already imported coal, he said.
It also created congestion of coal-loaded ships in Rampal jetty, he added.
He further said that the lean riverine channel linked to the project has only less than 4 meters draft, for which a greater number of lighter vessels are being used instead of big capacity barges for carrying coals.
The power plant authority is going to select long-term coal suppliers through a competitive bidding process by the end of this month, but he feared that the coal suppliers might be discouraged because of the current delay in unloading, sources said.
“Only one out of three conveyor belts of the jetty is operational so far to unload coal at this Indo-Bangla power plant. It faces trouble in unloading coal from a single jetty where this single ship-unloader sometimes remains idle due to technical fault,” the official said.
The Unit-1 of the power plant will need at least 5,000 tonnes of coal daily and the Unit-2 is expected to start commissioning in March 2023, that will require another 5,000 tonnes daily.
“But, the plant has only one jetty operational (for unloading coal),” he said, expressing frustration, adding that “it was supposed to be completed in late 2021.”
According to him, the plant will set up three jetties to unload coal for feeding fuel to the power plant. Of them, only one so far is ready for unloading coal for the power plant.
The official said, “There is a problem with the jetty also as its one of three conveyor belts is only operational. There is a deadlock on the jetty.”
The plant authorities completed construction of a jetty where the unloading facility is partially operational, said Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company Ltd’s Managing Director Engineer Sayeed Akram Ullah.
“We are working to complete another jetty late in September, 2022 and a third jetty will be launched in another two months,” he informed.
He admitted that the company has been facing some difficulties managing facilities at the initial period of commissioning.
“We are hopeful that the coal unloading issues will be fixed before the commissioning period of the plant,” Sayeed Akram Ullah said.
During the plant visit last month, Subhash Chandra Pandey, Project Director of Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Private Ltd (BIFPCL), said, “The Unit-1 of the 2×660 MW Maitree Super Thermal Power Project will be ready for commercial run at the end of October.”
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually unveiled the completion of Unit-1 of Rampal Power Plant (RPP) during PM Hasina’s latest visit to India on September 6 this year.
