Photo : Collected
Production of Matarbari power plant has been completely stopped due to coal shortage. Meanwhile, India's electricity supply has halved due to mounting arrears. On the other hand, half of the capacity electricity is also coming from S Alam's Banskhali (SS Power) and Rampal. Thus oil-based power generation has been increased to deal with load shedding as supply falls against demand. It increases the production cost of electricity.
Among the major coal-fired power plants in the country, only the Payra power plant is operating at full capacity. Saturday, there was a demand of 11,000 to 12,000 megawatts of electricity at different times of the day and night in the country. During this time there has been load shedding from 200 to 700 MW. Which was less than the previous few days. Earlier, the maximum load shedding in the country was 1685 MW on Friday night and 1576 MW on Thursday night.
According to PDB, oil-based power generation was between 400 million units (kWh) and 150 million units even a week ago. On October 25, 13.7 million kilowatt hours or 1 crore 37 lakh units of oil-based electricity was produced to meet the country's demand. It has cost around Tk 25.20 crore. The amount of electricity generated from oil increased to 3 crore 12 lakh units on October 26. Energy expenditure stood Tk 56.78. In one day, the cost of production increased by Tk 31. 67 crores to meet the electricity demand. On October 27, oil-based electricity generation was 3 crore 83 lakh units, on October 28 it was 4 crore 15 lakh units, on October 29 it was 4 crore 5 lakh units and on October 30 it was 4 crore 9 lakh units.
Besides, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is unable to pay bills to international fuel oil suppliers due to the dollar crisis and complications have been raised in import of fuel oil as the suppliers will not supply oil without receiving outstanding bills.
The amount owed by foreign companies to the state-owned organization stands at $500 million, which is about Tk 6000 crores in Bangladeshi currency. Those concerned have expressed fear that if the price of imported refined and crude oil is not paid, oil will not be able to be imported at the scheduled time in September.
According to BPC, till August 7, the country had 4,87,371 metric tons of diesel, 56,232 metric tons of jet fuel, 37,170 metric tons of octane, 2, 33, 84 metric tons of petrol and 58 ,777 metric tons of furnace. oil A BPC official said that with the stock up to Tuesday, 33 days of diesel, 15 days of octane and 14 days of petrol can be met the demand.
An official of BPC told the Daily Messenger “If the supplier companies do not agree to provide the transportation support, we will rent the ship from another company for bringing the crude.”
BPC has set a target of 59, 10000 metric tons of refined fuel oil import in the financial year 2024-2025. Out of this, 30, 80 metric tons of refined fuel oil will be imported under G-to-G agreement and 28, 30000 metric tons of refined fuel oil will be imported through open tender. Apart from this, BPC has set a target of 14 lakh metric tons of crude oil import. Refined fuels include diesel, mogas, jet A-1, furnace oil and marine fuel.
The three owners of the ship served legal notice to Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC), entitled for transporting imported oil on behalf of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), to have $13 million freight charge.
Experts think, excessive dependency on imported fuel has created the crisis. Besides, the government cannot pay the bills due to dollar and fund crisis.
Messenger/Disha
