Land filling a major hurdle

The government's bid to turn Maheshkhali into the top energy hub may fail to take off in time as policymakers have overlooked how the island's low-lying land will be filled before machines for power plants are installed.

Project developers may need to fill up eight to 10 metres of land across vast areas of the island, said officials of the Power Development Board (PDB) and Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh (EGCB). The PDB and EGCB have taken initiatives to install several power plants there with 1,300 megawatt capacity.

The PDB has acquired 5,500 acres of land while the EGCB is seeking to acquire 1,560 acres.

“We will not need to fill up all the land. But we will need to fill up enough to set up the power units. Setting up our power plant there is not going to be easy,” said a high official of the EGCB.

And there is no easy-to-get source of dirt around the island for filling land, except for sand from the Bay of Bengal.

“But we have not yet thought of turning to the Bay of Bengal for this,” the EGCB official pointed out.

Right now the country's only mega coal power project to have secured financing is the $4.5 billion 1,200MW Matarbari power project. It is close to Maheshkhali.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica)-funded project is now being implemented and as per the initial schedule, the plant is supposed to be completed by 2023.

“But after some ground work at the Matarbari site, Jica has extended the project implementation time by 19 additional months. This additional time will be needed for land development,” said a high official.

Meanwhile, Chinese company CCCC that submitted a proposal last year to build an independent coal terminal in Maheshkhali to facilitate coal handling for all future plants there has recently backtracked on its decision.

“After making some field trips to Maheshkhali, representatives of the CCCC told us that the government should first spend around a billion dollars to develop the land in Maheshkhali. They noted that land filling was a big challenge on two grounds. First is to fill up eight to 15 metres of land in places. Then the soil needs up to two years to compact so that installing heavy machinery would be safe and reliable,” said another official.

The EGCB will float the tender for its 1,300MW power plant in June upon completion of its environment impact study (now underway) and the feasibility study.

Its top official notes, “As per our initial assessment we need to fill up land by eight metres. But we are waiting for our feasibility study, which would shed light on the actual picture and how we would solve this problem.”

The official pointed out that Maheshkhali is a great choice as a site for imported coal power projects considering that the coal will be transported by large ships. “But right now the government is not thinking about the problem of land development in Maheshkhali. This issue needs urgent attention,” he said.

Back in February, the cabinet approved appointment of a consultant to formulate a master plan to install power plants that will produce 9,000MW in Maheshkhali.

Consulting consortium Steag of India and Germany and BCL of Bangladesh have been assigned a Tk 20.5 crore job to do a feasibility study and lay out a plan to install five large coal-fired power plants that will generate 6,000MW of electricity and one 3,000MW plant to be fired by imported liquefied natural gas.

The consortium's immediate job will be to act as the implementation consultant for the first of the five 1,200MW coal-fired ultra super critical power plant to be built jointly by the PDB and Chinese CHDHK.

The Maheshkhali site is within 10-15 kilometres of Matarbari where the coal-fired 1,200MW power project is being built with Japanese soft loan. The Matarbari plant comes with a massive $4.5 billion price tag and it includes setting up of a deep sea port dedicated to handling imported coal.

For the power plants in Maheshkhali, the PDB has signed memorandums of understanding with Malaysia and China to set up two power plants, each with 1,320MW capacity.

In April last year, the PDB signed an MoU with Chinese company CHDHK and has finalised a joint venture agreement. In September, it signed an MoU with Malaysian Tenega and is now preparing for a feasibility study. 

Besides, the PDB is framing MoUs with Korean company Kepko and a Singaporean company for two separate power plants.

The North West Power Generation Company has also signed an MoU with Chinese company CMC last year and has appointed a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for its 1,320MW coal power project.