Coal for Payra power plant arrives, generation to resume soon
A ship carrying 41,327 tonnes of coal has finally arrived at Payra port 18 days after power generation at the Payra Thermal Power Plant was halted due to fuel shortage.
Another ship carrying coal for the Matarbari coal-fired power plant at Maheshkhali in Cox's Bazar arrived at the deep-sea port there from Indonesia yesterday.
MV Athena – the vessel that brought the first shipment since the closure of Payra power plant – was scheduled to unload some of the imported coal while it was anchored in the Payra port channel by 3pm on Friday, reports UNB.
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The vessel was scheduled to enter the jetty of the 1,320MW Payra Thermal Power Plant last night, Engineer AM Khurshedul Alam, managing director of Bangladesh China Power Company Ltd, told The Business Standard.
He said the plant will resume power generation on 25 June, and continue operating from then on as more coal shipments are in the pipeline.
Four more coal-laden ships will arrive at Payra in the first week of July, according to plant officials.
The country's largest thermal power plant, Payra, was completely shut down on 5 June due to fuel shortage.
Due to the failure to pay an outstanding bill of $390 million caused by dollar shortage, production of a unit of the plant was halted on 25 May as the companies involved stopped supplying coal.
Production at the other unit continued until 5 June when it was also shut down due to coal shortage. The closure of the country's biggest thermal power plant led to weeks of nationwide load-shedding amid the hottest summer on record.
Shah Abdul Hasib, superintending engineer (operation) of Payra Thermal Power Plant, said the opening of the LC was delayed due to the dollar crisis.
Outstanding bills worth $100 million have already been cleared through the World Bank, he said.
Coal for Matarbari power plant arrives
The Panama flag-carrying MV Navios Amber arrived with 64,300 tonnes of coal at the Matarbari deep sea artificial jetty yesterday, said Alfaz Ahmed, security officer at Matarbari Coal Power Project.
Later, the ship was taken to the coal power plant jetty from the outer anchorage of the port with the help of four tugs, including strong tugs Kandari 2 and 4 of Chittagong port.
This is the fifth ship to bring coal to this power plant. With this, more than 3 lakh tonnes of coal have arrived in the last two months.
He said experimental power generation activities with coal are going on. Power from Matarbari coal-fired power plant will be added to the national grid soon.
