Anisul Islam Noor :
The government has finalized a plan of increasing electricity generation using coal from own sources.
As part of this plan, the second coal fired power plant using locally produced coal is scheduled to be set up near Dighirpara coal field in Dinajpur, State Minister for power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told The New Nation on Monday.
The government gave positive nod to a proposal of Chinese state-run POWERCHINA Resources Ltd to set up a 660MW power plant that would be run on coal from the Dighipara coal mine filed, he said.
Power Development Board (PDB) would sign a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Chinese company to form the joint venture, Nasrul Hamid said.
Earlier, PDB examined the organisational capability and the proposal of POWERCHINA and sent the proposal for ministerial approval to form the joint venture to set up the coal-fired power plant using Ultra Supercritical technology, said officials.
The proposed power plant will require 1.55 million tonnes of coal a year, according to the proposal.
Dighipara will be the second mine to be developed for coal extraction after the Barapukuria mine. In 2005 Barapukuria coal mine was developed some 20 years after its discovery.
In 1995 Geological Survey of Bangladesh discovered Dighipara coal deposit with an estimated reserve of 600 million tonnes of coal.
The first layer of the coal deposit was found at 327 metres depth, officials said, which made it suitable for underground mining.
Till now, Barapukuria Thermal Power Station is the lone coal-fired power generation facility in the country.
PDB runs the two-unit power station with a combined generation capacity of 250MW and is also setting up another power unit with 275MW capacity at the power station.
The power plant gets coal from Barapukuria deposit. State-run Barapukuria Coal Mine Company Limited engages a third party to extract coal from the mine through underground mining.
The company has also been given the task to develop Dighipara coal mine.
BCMCL has already initiated a move to carry out a complete geological and geo-technical study to determine the technical and economic feasibility of the coalmine. They plan to complete the studies in 30 months beginning from January 2017.
There are three other large coal deposits in the North Bengal area at Jamalganj in Joypurhat with an estimated reserve of 1,054 million tonnes of coal at 900-1000 metres depth, Khalashpir in Rangpur with an estimated reserve of 523 million tonnes of coal at 257-483 metres depth and Phulbari in Dinajpur with an estimated reserve of 572 million tonnes of coal at 150-240 metres depth.
