Troubled coalmine shows hope for power plant

The troubled Barapukuria coalmine that had been failing to produce enough coal to run the two-unit 250 megawatt (MW) coal fired power plant at its site may be able to ensure enough coal production throughout the current year, a top official of the mine said.
This is because the mine has started coal production at a new phase from January 14. This mining area is environmentally and geologically less hostile than the last production phases. On the plus side, mining equipment have been overhauled in the last two months to ensure efficiency.
The Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Ltd (BCMCL) on Monday hit a record daily coal production of 3,685 tonnes of coal from the new phase. On Friday it had produced 3,436 tonnes of coal, more than double the regular production level achieved in the last two years.
"This has been also possible because the past energy adviser and the energy secretary took deep interest in the mine and obtained, for the first time, a work schedule from the mine's Chinese developer CMC. The power secretary also helped prompt release of mining and power equipment from the port," said a well-placed Petrobangla source.
Sources said from January 14, it started off with producing 2,000 tonnes of coal. From January 22, the production shot up between 2,800 tonnes and 3000 tonnes.
Now both the units of the China-made power plant are operating. Since late 2006, the plant could not go into full power generation at a stretch for a long time due to lack of coal as well as power plant glitches. The two units consume up to 2,000 tonnes of coal a day.
"Our target is to produce eight lakh tonnes of coal this year. The power plant annually needs six lakh tonnes. It means that we will then be able to sell the remaining coal to other consumers," said a top official.
The BCMCL could hardly produce 3.5 lakh tonnes of coal during 2006-07, against a target production of six lakh tonnes. This not only affected the power generation by the plant, but also kept the coal production cost as high as $84 per tonne. In the previous year, low coal production pushed the cost to $91 dollars a tonne.
In 2006 and 2007, the BCMCL was producing around 1,500 tonnes a day. On a few rare occasions this production went up to 2,500 tonnes tops, while on many occasions it dipped to 1,100 tonnes and for many months the production remained suspended for one reason or another.
The underground mine was designed to produce coal from two phases simultaneously to achieve a daily production target of 2,400 tonnes. But it was not possible because one set of mining equipment had to be abandoned in mine Phase-1110 in 2005 due to emission of lethal gas in that area.
The BCMCL was producing coal from a single phase, Phase-1109. It tried to recover the mining equipment from Phase-1110 twice but those attempts were not fully successful.
Already burdened by excessive project cost, past corruption, bad project designs plus unforeseen environmental hazards, it looked like Barapukuria coalmine will never be able to produce at least enough coal for the power plant. Much of the mining area is regularly flooded by extremely hot sub-soil water making the mine very risky to work in.
The company suspended coal production back in November to prepare for coal production at the new Phase-1103 from February first week. However, the BCMCL could launch its operations in this phase from January 14.
"We are producing good chunks of coal from this phase because of three reasons. Firstly, the length and width of the coal seam in this phase is very convenient for the mechanical cutting devise to collect good chunks of coal. Secondly, unlike the previous phases, the height of this phase is higher. This also allows collection of more coals. And thirdly, the environmental condition in this phase is much better than the previous phase," said an official.
The previous mine phase was flooded with water with temperature shooting up to 47 degrees and the air of the humid mine area would become as hot as 36 degrees. The floor of the mine was naturally inclined by up to 22 degrees--making the mining equipment less efficient. The present phase has lesser humidity and temperature and little internal flooding. Plus, the floor inclination is only 7 degrees now.
The BCMCL plans to extract nearly four lakh tonnes of coal from this area by June. Meanwhile, another new phase, Phase-1104, is being prepared for the next round of operation from July. From that phase, the BCMCL will produce about 4.4 lakh tonnes of coal.
"If there is no major trouble underground, and if the PDB's power plant continues to pay the mining company for coal purchase, we believe the mine will do better this year," said an energy ministry official.
A Petrobangla official emphasised highly on the recovery of mining equipment from Phase-1110 to ensure achievement of production target. "The root of the mine's problem is that it has been grossly failing to produce enough coal to justify its operational costs. The only way to overcome this is to maintain its target production. To achieve that, we have to recover the stranded equipment," he said.
He added that Petrobangla or the BCMCL should have had formed a committee to find out why the last bid to recover the equipment from Phase-1110 had failed. "We do not know exactly what the problem is. And we do not see any work plan indicating when they would try to recover the equipment again," he pointed out.
Chinese company CMC and its partners developed the coalmine based on a highly flawed supplier's credit that apparently benefited only certain BNP policymakers and the Hosaf Group as it represented the mine developers, mine's consultant and the power companies.
Even though the mine was supposed to be completed in 1998, the project remains unfinished in parts and the mine is producing less than half of its "revised" target production. Originally the mine, being built at a cost of around Tk 800 crore was supposed to produce 60 million tonnes of coal in 30 years. But following a technical disaster, the mine was redesigned in 1998--putting the production target at just 30 million dollars. But again, from late 2005, poisonous gas emission forced the mining authorities to seal Phase-1110 along with mining equipment thus halving the daily production target again.