Staff Reporter :
The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has requested the government to give permission to the private power plant sponsors to partially import High-Speed Furnace Oil (HFO) to feed their plants’ additional demand.
Private power sponsors said to have incurred huge revenue losses due to substandard quality of fuel import. The liquid fuel based power projects would require 17,66,000 tonnes of fuel for electricity production this year, power division official said.
Besides, the petroleum distribution companies have expressed unhappiness over a government move to allow formation of a fuel supply company in private sector and import fuel through private company for refueling power plants.
The heads of the distribution companies have expressed their dissatisfaction at an inter-ministerial meeting with representative the Power Development Board (PDB), BPC, Padma, Meghna and Jamuna oil companies in the secretariat late at last year.
The government has already allowed three separate private power projects – Khulna Power Plant Limited, Khulna Power Plant Limited-2 and Khan Jahan Ali Power Project to import 336,000 tonnes of furnace oil required for their own plants.
Power Division directive said, they have no objection to import of fuel for private sponsors if the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) would issue no objection certification.
BPC Chairman Md Eunusur Rahman recently wanted the permission to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division. The BPC has already finalised its calendar of fuel imports for the year 2014, the BPC chairman informed the division.
“A large number of companies have already applied for importing fuel for consumption of their own plants and the BPC could allow them to import of additional fuels,” he said.
He said that the fuel supply would face setback if Power Division did not respond to meet their additional demand for HFO for generating electricity.
The 35 oil-fired power projects would require 1946 tonnes of HFO. Over dozens of liquid-fuel based power projects in private sector, having capacity to generate over 2000MW of electricity, have applied for clearance to import fuel required for their own projects.
Most of the power sponsors wanted to import their own fuel, taking advantage of the government policy to allow nine percent service charges, concerned officials said. The private sponsors would get around three to four percent profits from the service charge in addition to the power tariff, they added.
Private power sponsors alleged that Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has supplied substandard fuel to power plants that has caused mechanical problem to the plants.
However, the BPC officials said, they have supplied fuel to power projects as per its requirement. The Power Division had formed a committee last year but yet to get any outcome over the matter.
Energy experts said the power division has examined quality of petroleum fuel supplied to the power plants with independent expert like BUET.
