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May 5, 2016 11:30 pm JST
Reliance Power bags $1.3 billion LNG-based project in energy-starved Bangladesh
KIRAN SHARMA, Nikkei staff writer
NEW DELHI -- Indian energy firms are aggressively seeking to expand their presence in neighboring Bangladesh, which is aiming to double its power generation capacity to 24 gigawatts a day by 2021 to meet growing demands.
Reliance Power is the latest company to announce that it will set up a 750 megawatt liquefied natural gas-based plant along with a floating storage and regasification unit (known as FSRU) in Bangladesh at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion.
The company is part of Reliance Group, which is led by Anil Ambani, brother of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani. It is involved in many power projects in India's private sector, including in coal, gas, hydro and renewable energy.
In a stock exchange filing in Mumbai, Reliance Power said the Bangladesh government had given approval in-principle for the power plant, which will be set up at the Meghnaghat area, around 40km southeast of the capital city of Dhaka. The land for the plant will be provided by the Bangladesh Power Development Board.
Under the project, the FSRU terminal will be established at Maheshkhali Island in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh.
"This will be the largest foreign direct investment in Bangladesh with a potential investment of over $1.3 billion," Reliance Power said.
The project is part of a memorandum of understanding signed between Reliance Power and the BPDB in June last year during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Dhaka visit. The MoU spoke of developing in phases a 3,000MW LNG-based combined cycle power project in Bangladesh at an estimated investment of about $3 billion.
A combined cycle power plant is highly efficient as it uses both gas and steam turbines to produce electricity. The gas turbine produces electricity using natural gas, while the steam one generates additional power with the waste heat from the gas turbine.
The approval from the Bangladesh government has come for the first phase, which will be commissioned in the financial year beginning April 2018. This will be the largest such project in the country.
As of April 10, Bangladesh’s total installed power generation capacity was about 12.3GW a day, and it was producing around 8.3GW. Only 60% of Bangladesh's population of 160 million has access to electricity, while the country's power demand is growing at a rate of 10% annually.
Modi said in Dhaka last year that India can be a major partner in achieving Bangladesh's goal of installing 24GW capacity. He requested Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to facilitate the entry of Indian companies into Bangladesh's power generation, transmission and distribution sector.
Separately, India's Adani Gas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises,is seeking to grab a segment of Bangladesh’s cooking gas sector, which is heavily dependent on imports.
The company recently submitted an expression of interest to India's Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board for "laying, building, operating or expanding" a 650 km liquefied petroleum gas pipeline, from its proposed LPG terminal in eastern Odisha state to West Bengal state's Asansol area, as well as its Duttapulia region near the Bangladesh border.
Adani Group is constructing a 1.6 million ton capacity LPG terminal at Odisha's Dhamra port. The project is slated for completion by mid-2018. By seeking to construct the pipeline, the company aims to supply gas to central and eastern parts of India as well as to Bangladesh.
Last month, state-run Indian Oil Corp. inked a pact with Bangladesh Petroleum Corp. to explore ways of setting up an LPG import terminal at Bangladesh's Chittagong coastal region and laying a pipeline from there to the eastern Indian state of Tripura.
Bangladeshi private companies import about 150,000 tons of LPG per year while the state-run BPC produces just 20,000 tons locally -- but the combined total is still less than half of the country's total annual demand.
Given the abundance of opportunities in power- and gas-deficient Bangladesh, Indian private and state-run firms have their sights set firmly on their neighbor.
Reliance Power bags $1.3 billion LNG-based project in energy-starved Bangladesh
KIRAN SHARMA, Nikkei staff writer
NEW DELHI -- Indian energy firms are aggressively seeking to expand their presence in neighboring Bangladesh, which is aiming to double its power generation capacity to 24 gigawatts a day by 2021 to meet growing demands.
Reliance Power is the latest company to announce that it will set up a 750 megawatt liquefied natural gas-based plant along with a floating storage and regasification unit (known as FSRU) in Bangladesh at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion.
The company is part of Reliance Group, which is led by Anil Ambani, brother of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani. It is involved in many power projects in India's private sector, including in coal, gas, hydro and renewable energy.
In a stock exchange filing in Mumbai, Reliance Power said the Bangladesh government had given approval in-principle for the power plant, which will be set up at the Meghnaghat area, around 40km southeast of the capital city of Dhaka. The land for the plant will be provided by the Bangladesh Power Development Board.
Under the project, the FSRU terminal will be established at Maheshkhali Island in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh.
"This will be the largest foreign direct investment in Bangladesh with a potential investment of over $1.3 billion," Reliance Power said.
The project is part of a memorandum of understanding signed between Reliance Power and the BPDB in June last year during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Dhaka visit. The MoU spoke of developing in phases a 3,000MW LNG-based combined cycle power project in Bangladesh at an estimated investment of about $3 billion.
A combined cycle power plant is highly efficient as it uses both gas and steam turbines to produce electricity. The gas turbine produces electricity using natural gas, while the steam one generates additional power with the waste heat from the gas turbine.
The approval from the Bangladesh government has come for the first phase, which will be commissioned in the financial year beginning April 2018. This will be the largest such project in the country.
As of April 10, Bangladesh’s total installed power generation capacity was about 12.3GW a day, and it was producing around 8.3GW. Only 60% of Bangladesh's population of 160 million has access to electricity, while the country's power demand is growing at a rate of 10% annually.
Modi said in Dhaka last year that India can be a major partner in achieving Bangladesh's goal of installing 24GW capacity. He requested Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to facilitate the entry of Indian companies into Bangladesh's power generation, transmission and distribution sector.
Separately, India's Adani Gas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises,is seeking to grab a segment of Bangladesh’s cooking gas sector, which is heavily dependent on imports.
The company recently submitted an expression of interest to India's Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board for "laying, building, operating or expanding" a 650 km liquefied petroleum gas pipeline, from its proposed LPG terminal in eastern Odisha state to West Bengal state's Asansol area, as well as its Duttapulia region near the Bangladesh border.
Adani Group is constructing a 1.6 million ton capacity LPG terminal at Odisha's Dhamra port. The project is slated for completion by mid-2018. By seeking to construct the pipeline, the company aims to supply gas to central and eastern parts of India as well as to Bangladesh.
Last month, state-run Indian Oil Corp. inked a pact with Bangladesh Petroleum Corp. to explore ways of setting up an LPG import terminal at Bangladesh's Chittagong coastal region and laying a pipeline from there to the eastern Indian state of Tripura.
Bangladeshi private companies import about 150,000 tons of LPG per year while the state-run BPC produces just 20,000 tons locally -- but the combined total is still less than half of the country's total annual demand.
Given the abundance of opportunities in power- and gas-deficient Bangladesh, Indian private and state-run firms have their sights set firmly on their neighbor.
