Present Government claims to have added over 3000MW new electricity to national grid over the last three years. There has not been major new demand growth over this period as new connections remained suspended for a long time. Given that most of the new generation came from very expensive imported liquid fuel based Contingency and peaking plants there are no excuses why nation should continue to suffer from endemic power glitch. There are reports that power demand supply imbalance will soon create a deficit of 2000MW. Power load shedding has already commenced. As temperature goes higher load shedding would increase. Member of the parliament from treasury bench asked genuine question where this new addition of power gone? Why people have to suffer from similar miseries that it is undergoing for over 7 years now? How much people can rely on official figures of power demand and generation? Petrobangla supplies over 700MMCFD gas to power. Modern fuel efficient plants can generate over 5500MW power using the same amount of gas .Why Petrobangla should be blamed for PDB failures of not replacing ageing fuel inefficient plants with modern plants?
Bangladesh is now passing through a critical juncture of national life. Among other challenges generation and supply of power is one of the most important. It is a national priority. People have heard enough of blame games. People have heard enough from high sounding talk shops. Responsible people talked of freeing the nation from load shedding soon through mega plans. A large group spending money from government exchequer had “Picnic trip” to Singapore, London and New York for unnecessary Road shows projecting investment potentials in Bangladesh energy sector in late 2009 and early 2010. What were the outcomes? Millions of dollars were spent and are being spent in importing expensive liquid fuel from abroad for feeding uneconomic Contingency plants and peaking plants. Why nation is getting rid of the menace of load shedding? People have to account for higher power tariff, higher fuel price. Why they still have to suffer? The expensive plants were contracted for three years and some for five years. Many of these failed to take off. Some of them can not generate capacity power. Most of the contracts require to be extended and are being extended as major base load power generation in foreseeable future has become uncertain. Government decision to go for too many expensive contingency plants have burdened BPC and PDB to such an extent that they are on the brink of bankruptcy. National economy in bleeding from subsidy overburden .End users have to account for higher price for power though quality of supply remains to be diabolic.
We all know that one of the main reasons for the prolonged crisis is the miserable failure of the government to arrange required fuel – gas and coal for power generation. Government failed to initiate actions to explore and exploit significant high quality own coal exploration and exploitation in over three years. Government also failed to aggressively explore for natural gas in onshore frontiers and vast offshore. Some vested quarter misguided policy makers for importing coal and LNG knowing very well of technical and commercial challenges of such initiatives. Another group completely misjudging the capability of Petrobangla and Bangladeshi Professionals continues campaign against foreign investment throwing the entire energy sector to long term crisis.
Bangladesh now is set to import power from India. It may hardly get 500MW by 2013. If coal mining from Barapukuria and Phulabri could be initiated by the most appropriate open pit method by the middle of 2009 and simultaneous actions could be taken to set up mine mouth power generation nation could be blessed with at least 2000 MW own coal based power by end 2013 . Now inactions of the government in harnessing own coal and agitations of an identified quarter give apprehension whether these are done to favor a mafia syndicate thriving from coal and power import.
Many think that actual power demand is much higher than what PDB states. In 2009 when present government took over the reported demand was 5500MW against which generation was 3500MW.If in three years demand grew by 1500MW it should be 7000 MW and if Government added 3000MW new power by this time the generation should be 6500MW. If all figures are true 500MW national deficit must not create any panic. There must be something wrong somewhere.
There cannot be any excuse for Petrobangla not adding additional production and transmission capacity in over three years. It claims to have added about 300MMCFD of which about 250MMCFD came from Chevron operated Bibiyana alone, the development of which was done during Care taker Government. Petrobangla companies mostly worked over few wells and added some insignificant generation from marginal fields [having reserves of 50 BCM]. Government engaged two gentlemen as Chairman PDB and Petrobangla and also extended their contract clearly being impressed from their performances .Hence Government must own the total responsibility for the present crisis of power and energy sector for which poor vision, wrong planning and failed management of resources should be accounted for.
Government is busy countering opposition movement on the street. Opposition is equally irresponsible in that it cannot address issues like energy and power crisis as they were primarily responsible for it when they were in state power. But one thing for sure if present government cannot bring meaningful changes to power and energy supply situation by December 2013 it will become extremely challenging for them to return to power as people would continue to suffer from power , gas and water supply crisis .
It must set priority actions and change its plans.
- Must abandon Coal and LNG import initiatives.
- Take urgent initiative to explore and exploit own coal and initiate actions for setting up mine mouth coal based power plants.
- Announce fresh bidding round for onshore frontiers and undisputed offshore blocks.
- Expedite all project implementation for gas production and transmission projects.
- Implement Bakhrabad – Chittagong Gas Transmission loop line project on top priority basis.
- Conduct on stream pigging of all gas transmission pipelines in planned manner. Segments in North –South Corridor must be pigged first.
- Review performance of Petrobangla and PDB top executives and engage right professionals of proven track records.
Present energy crisis is a national crisis .There must not be any politics here. We believe no patriotic political party will object to exploration and exploitation of own resources applying state of the art modern technology. No one will object if genuine professionals irrespective of party alignment are engaged in Power and Energy sector for managing the national organizations professionally.
Author : Engr Khondkar Abdus Saleque
