Energy & Power

Cover Report

Development of Bangladesh’s Coal: Strategy and Method
M Azizur Rahman

Experts at a roundtable were unanimous about the necessity to explore the country’s huge coal reserve potentials to ensure the future energy security and keep economic growth in momentum. They said coal can contribute significantly in power generation in the coming years reducing the ultimate dependency on the fast-depleting natural gas.
But the decision to develop the country’s coalmines must be taken without delay to accelerate economic growth, the speakers stressed.
Country’s first and only fortnightly magazine on energy issues Energy & Power and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) jointly organized the roundtable titled “Development of Bangladesh’s coal: Strategy and Method” at CIRDAP auditorium in the city on February 27 last.
Speaking at the roundtable the discussants lamented saying despite having enormous potentials coal is yet to be developed due to inadequate planning and lack of decisiveness by the government along with widespread debate on the mining method.
“The country has already lost valuable time over debating. Now time has come to put an end to the long-lasting debate and take proper decision from the government to expedite development of the coal sector without further delay,” they said.
There might be debate or difference in opinion on mining or the mining method but the decision should come in a pragmatic way so that the mining ensures highest coal extraction and betters country’s economic status significantly.
The decision should also be investment-friendly to make sure that investors are encouraged to pour their huge money to develop and extract the country’s coal reserves.
The country has huge coal reserves of around 3.30 billion tonnes in five different mines – 390 million tonnes at Barapukuria, 685 million tonnes at Khalashpir, 572 million tonnes at Phulbari, 1.05 billion tonnes at Jamalganj and 600 million tonnes at Dighipara – in the northern region.
These huge coal reserves, if properly utilized, can play pivotal role in accelerating the country’s growth pace and help achieving its various development goals, the discussants pointed out.
Special Assistant to Chief Adviser on energy issues M Tamim was the chief guest at the roundtable, while the UNDP Country Director Manoj Basnyat was the guest of honour on the occasion.
Senior Journalist and Bureau Chief of Associated Press (AP) in Bangladesh Farid Hossain moderated the discussion chaired by Energy & Power editor Mollah Amzad Hossain.
Professor Jayanta Bhattacharya of Department of Mining Engineering of the Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Kharagpur presented the keynote paper at the roundtable discussion, where UNDP’s Assistant Country Director Shireen Kamal Sayeed, Professor Badrul Imam of Geology Department of Dhaka University, Director (mining) Petrobangla Moqbul-E-Elahi, former Secretary Quamrul Islam Siddique Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Asia Energy Gary Lye and four residents of Phulbari of Dinajpur also spoke on the occasion.
Prof M Tamim
First thing I want to mention is the issue of policy. We are all talking about coal policy for last three years. But by doing that and having so much public debate we have lost the focus of the word - policy.
What is a policy? Let us look at the existing policies and how these policies were formulated.
The National Energy Policy (NEP) is not that big of a document. The detailing of the nitty-gritty working manual is not in that policy.
Policy is a broad decision and not an elaborate description of how to implement the decision.
There are other things that will be done on the basis of a policy.
I will give you just one example – whether coal or what other alternative fuels we have to use – if that decision has to be taken that has to be a policy statement.
So policy will have to tell that okay we have shortage of gas, these are the scenario so we have to switch to coal for power generation.
That is a one-line policy statement and that is all required to develop coal.
You don’t need anything else. There are other issues that can come into policy. I will give another example – the methodology of mining.
Is there any country in this world where there are mines having just only one kind of methodology in use – no where.
That means it is not a policy decision. We have to clearly distinguish between what we need to put into policy what need to be put into acts, rules and regulations.
So the whole legislation of a certain decision-making – policy – is a political decision and how to implement this policy is done through acts, rules and regulations.
We are mixing up these acts rules and regulations with policy.
So methodology should go into one of those. The policy should not dictate that this is what should do.
Because, if that were done just one kind of mining would happen in a particular country
If we look into any country in the world we will see the mining methods are mine-dependent. Technology, geology environment and all other issues are involved and these vary from mine to mine.
We have Barapukuria underground coalmine. There are reasons why we went for underground there and those reasons have to be looked into whether that complies with our own policy.
Regarding royalty, tax, pricing – these are not part of policy decisions. Royalty cannot be apart of policy decisions because royalty is a one way of ensuing that Bangladesh gets fair share and people gets the benefits.
If we look into the gas sector we will see that policy does not say what would be the share of gas.
These are too nitty-gritty and because of the changing local and global economy these are always changing.
So in a changed situation what we have to do?
Number one policy decision and that is to ensure the interests of the country and to maximize the benefits of the people that is a policy statement.
If we follow that policy everything detailed will have to comply with that policy statement. So these will have to be very clearly understood.
Whether we want to export or not is too a policy decision.
Any policy formulations, however, should have very good background.
Our national objective is to provide electricity for all and nobody will deny it excepting one or two. So this is a broad consensus that we have now.
What are the resources we can use to produce electricity? Very simple you just come analytically and see what are the options we have?
If the educated people think that solar energy can be a good source for our future policy needs that would be absurd.
Ignorance of educated people is stunning. I personally believe strongly in renewable as a supplementary to the mass scale energy.
In most advanced countries in the world where solar and wind other renewable by act of legislation is 10%.
I was talking to one Danish friend yesterday he said they have gone to 10% and after that it is flat and that 10% was reached with heavy government subsidy.
I believe for a new technology the government subsidy is required. We are ready to give subsidy to certain projects and levels for renewable -- this is already being done.
Wind prospect is not actually well. I have looked into a study where it was found that wind energy is not so good in Bangladesh.
Policy decisions should be a broad decision based on which detailed would be formulated.
The issues of economic situation must needs to be understood correctly in this regard.
Dr Jayanta has told about Indian company going to all over the world. Indian Reliance is a world-class company. Tata is the sixth largest steel makers in the world.
Where is the Tata and Reliance in this country?
Currently we are transiting from a monopolistic state-run economy or a centrally controlled economy to an open market economy.
Countries like Australia, the USA and India have their own companies.
But when we are in transition and when we don’t have our companies then the question of protecting our interest becomes very highlighted with emotional touch.
If the local companies had come forward it would be encouraging.
I wish they got involved in energy business. It is very lucrative.
But unfortunately I don’t see any consortium of local businesses getting interested into energy businesses.
If the local companies were there our decision-making would not have any problem.
So the economy of a country and how to balance it play a big role. We have to be very careful about these.
About gas reserves professor Khalil R Chowdhury said that at once we were saying that we were floating on gas.
I never endorsed that. But I always believe that we have gas and we still have more gas.
Because of the lack of drilling and exploration in the last 10 years we are not seeing the fruit.
If we had that we would have been another 4-5 trillion cubic feet of gas well in our hands. There were no explorations at all.
Adopting the country’s coal policy and ensure subsequently the coalmine development is certainly necessary.
Should we stop the whole coal thing if we have a discovery of additional 8.0 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of BAPEX owned gas reserve right on tomorrow?

Certainly not and it is because we are going to consume 1.0 Tcf gas annually from the current consumption rate of 0.6 Tcf due to soaring gas demand.

A good number of development projects are now held up due to lack in supplying of gas. As a nation we have to now look at the benefit of producing electricity out of coal.

For coalmine we will loose some agricultural lands there is no doubt about that.

Resources extraction is not painless anywhere in the world.

Any resource extraction will have to pay prices. Now the benefits of the extraction and the prices we are paying for it have to have a balance and need to see what is more beneficial.

This is for all of us to take a decision on it.

In Phulbari coalmine, where some 6,000 hectares of cultivating land exists, not all these lands are going to be taken at a time if it is developed.

This will be done in phases whatever way we go.

One must consider it very judiciously whether it is beneficial if we get one-fourth of our electricity for 20 years in exchange of that land.

And at the same time the mitigation out of any impact from coalmining must have to have certain standard.

If you don’t meet the standard we will not allow mining – this is as simple as that.

If the people of are not taken care of properly to the best of our satisfaction we will not allow mining whether the miner is a foreign company or a local one.

Unfortunately I tell you the foreign company has much higher standard than the local companies.

But if a local company goes and acquires land nobody says anything, because it is local and we feel it is for our good.

But why don’t we force the local company to meet the same standard and give the benefit to the people of that area.

So these things has to be quite clear.

And as a nation we have to learn to live together despite having difference in opinion.

We cannot have monologs going on. We really have to come to a consensus for the betterment of the country and the people of the locality concerned.

There is no other alternative.

If somebody refuses to do that then we will have to discard him. If somebody refuses dialogue we have to discard we cannot have just one view and say that this is the only view and that view has to be taken.

And there is no reason to be personal. And I saw somebody has been threatened for expressing an opinion, which is deplorable.

Besides, we have problem of deceiving information. Lot of people has lots of mis-concepts having half information on coalmining.

I think people who are involved and who wants to go ahead and do this business they have a responsibility to tell people the truth – whatever are the facts.

We should go for a major information drive regarding anything we want to do. That information must be provided to stakeholders.

Everybody point out Barapukuria as a failure. At one point I did too. I will confess that I used Barapukuria as an example of failure.

But as I went through it and understood its difficulties I don’t see only failure I see a lot of success too.

The failure is the project cost that went to Tk 1600 crore from only Tk 800 crore. This is, however, non-technical problem.

Apart from that and the Barapukuria is a wonder due to overcoming its adversity, less toxicity of chemicals.

We can say that we have the tenacity to overcome adversity.

So those who see barapukuria only as a failure needs to rethink.

We have learnt. We had done mistakes and we have shown that we can overcome adversity.

The problem of land-subsidence is true. As I said there is a price to pay whether you go for underground or open pit.

Our underground is fairly shallow underground having unconsolidated sands so land subsidence cannot be stopped.

So whether you go for open cut or underground there is an environmental price and social price to pay.

We should measure the price and measure what are the benefits. I believe the benefit is much more if we rake care of the problems through proper measures and mitigation.

We should go ahead and develop the coal. We can’t wait for it.

I will request all the people that let us not ponder over it anymore. Let us take a decision and come up with a broader consensus and go ahead with it

Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya

I will start with a simple piece of anecdote that goes like this in the USA there was a survey made once about how the valves or the air conditioners are given power.

Many students and many elderly people too said that it comes from the switches. If we put the switches on power comes and switch it off power goes.

This is what is a public perception of energy in most cases.

So very few understands that it requires coal to be burnt or it requires oil to be burnt at some places so that the energy can be produced and then brought finally to the switches and any of the equipments that we use.

Another important thing has happened this morning in New York as the price of per barrel oil reached to more than US$ 101.

Let us tell you very interestingly until last year price of international coal – one grade coal- was going at $57 a tonne, today it is $ 140 a tonne, that means the price has escalated by about 300 times.

So does it give us an opportunity? Yes it does, because the valuation of our property goes high.

Does it give a challenge, it surely gives a challenge. The reason is that the more money you make out of business the more the external people will be interested in your business and they will rather try to take away your business from you.

So these are the opportunity and challenges sides.

And regarding supply side we require to have responsibility – the responsibility for higher growth and distribution of coal.

This supply should be extremely complex in the years to come as China and India continue to increase coal imports that would severely constraint the supply side.

Indonesia’s thermal exports hampered by extended rainy season –this was happened last year.

Russia now predicting decline in exports to serve domestic needs.

Australia exports just 5.4%, well below the global market requirement from Australia, which is 10%.

As the supply side problems are at increasing trend we have to create capacities within the country.

There are however technological developments, which are reducing emissions.

We are seeing the technological developments building new efficiently super critical coalmines, having 50 per cent lower CO2 emissions.

So if you are having links with the international experts you are certainly use the best technology available for the coal that you may have.

There exists a great opportunity for businesses in coalmining as I said opportunity comes with greater competition.

Increasing scarcity of demand will push abnormal price rise of the resources.

Developers will chase manageable property altering rules of mineral rights. This is what is really happening.

China is altering rules for its own requirement. And the companies of China and India are essentially changing their mineral rights to get more and more property.

All the new coal blocks in India, which is going to be mined, would be mined by the private sector.

The public sector participation is going down.

Government of India is no longer giving any property to the state-owned Coal India.

Coal India still has a proven reserve of coal for 15-20 years.

So the ownership pattern of coalmines is essentially changed – this is what the developers chasing for manageable property.

Indian companies are rigorously buying coalmines in Indonesia, Australia and South Africa.

You cannot sit idle as you have built a plant now you need minerals. If your are not getting it you look for where they are available.

To cope with the increased global competition, retailization of the minerals are also taking place.

People no longer are depending on mining business alone. The coal mining business is linked with power generation, distribution and even retailization of bills.

So finally from the mine you are going to individual customer, individual user of your property.

So this is the next round of business that is going to take place and this value addition is required to remain exist in the business.

There is no other way.

Recently one Indian group, Reliance, brought the highest initial public offering worth US$2.1 trillion to integrate in complete mining business.

They are going to acquire several properties throughout the world. Their idea is to vale added to the final point so that all this generation can put directly in businesses.

So this is what is the next trend as such as because supply side changes are taking place.

New coalmining business should be grounded on three basic fundamentals – corporate social responsibility, efficiency and leveraging.

Mining company must see that everybody of the stakeholders especially those who will be affected and the stakeholders get back the worth of their property.

There are few interesting innovation is taking place as well. It is not necessarily that you invest all the money right away at the first stage of investment into the people.

One of the coal-fired power project in India gave the local people financial securities – shares of the company – so that add values to their property’s worth.

Actually people don’t want money they want peace and secure future. So when you are trying to work with people don’t just think of dumping some money at their hands and think your responsibility is over.

On the other hand try to think how to secure future for them and his family. That work’s better even if you give less.

Make people comfortable. There is no point going into agitation or confrontation and it is challenging.

This means that you have to have huge transaction efficiency, your work should not essentially very efficient and only then you would be able to pay up these matters.

Efficiency is measured on how fast the transaction have done, how properly money is given to the people who have done work and how value addition is taking placing across the sector.

A very important feature of modern business is keeping the investment flexible having moderate liquidity, faster and prudent decision and making capacity development within the organization.

So mines would require good financial manager, good mining engineer, huge investment planner, risk analysts, and environmental scientists.

So think of these essentiality and your responsibility is increasing and responsibility can only be tackled with increased efficiency.

The third basic fundamentals, which is required for coal mining business is leveraging. Coalmining business is no longer a stand-alone business unless the resource is leveraged because of so many risks and so many unknowns to play with.

So one needs to be linked with many other business prospects and these business prospects will differ from country to country and requirement of any point of time.

So mining is a business of deprecating stock and need to leverage their prospects to other businesses.

Your mining business may not be profitable but providing electricity to customers may be profitable.

At the same time retailization needs to be taken place, otherwise mining business would not be a solid business proposal in the long run.

So this is where the perspective is and needs to be understood in the first place.

Moqbul-E-Elahi

I want to see this country as a prosperous country. My dream is not big. I believe that we should achieve the millennium development goals set by the government and the people of the country.

The goals are – by 2015 we want to come out of the least developed country (LDC) status and by 2020 we want to see electricity in every houses of the country which is our constitutional commitment.

To achieve these goals we need to ensure sustained gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of more than 7.0 per cent.

And to achieve this GDP growth we need above 10 per cent growth in energy supply.

Now let us look from where we can get the energy.

I believe all of you will agree with me by importing or depending on imported energy within this time may not be possible for us to achieve this.

We have to find out something within the country.

Regarding our first resource – gas –I still believe prospect is there.

We are now facing crisis as in the past we have not done what we were supposed to do.

And even if we start it today it will take minimum seven years to get the foot out of it.

So this is the area where we have to give the best effort.

But very unfortunately due to embargo by the High Court (HC), we could not go for extensive exploration in onland Bangladesh.

Very recently we got the permission from the government and we are going for the bidding.

Next come to hydroelectricity and all of us know what is the consequence of it – about its future prospect I don’t see any potentials.

Now comes the renewable – wind, solar – I can simply tell you many people can think in many ways.

But not in today’s time – may be in future things will come up.
.
So only one thing left in Bangladesh is coal.

So far we have discovered five. But I can tell you that these have been very very least explored. If it is properly explored – I won’t be surprised if the number goes to 15 within couple of years.

Now you are saying about coal at 200 meters, 250 meters or 400 meters depth. I wont be surprised if someday in that area coal is discovered in less than 100 meters.

So my request is that we should give our best effort for extensive exploration of coal in those areas and that can be done in two ways- mobilizing the public funds and private resources within the country.

And encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI) for exploration whether it is public, private or any source of fund it comes.

We have to ensure what would be the price of the coal because all of us discouraging export of coal from the country –it is good.

But at the same time like gas we will have to ensure what price you are going to give the investors.

Is it going to be enough for their investment to come and have a reasonable profit or not.

So I would request the policy makers –the think tanks of the country to consider about the coal price.

Finally, I want to say one thing what Prof Jayanta said nobody is absolute clean or nobody is absolute dirty.

You can keep the dirty things in a cleaner way.

I know what Prof Badrul Imam said there is plenty of challenges and problems in open pit and underground coal mining.

But in today’s world if we know the problem that means we solve 50 per cent of the problem.

Some people say we don’t have expertise in coal mining. I say if we don’t start today when you do get experience.

If we start only then we can get experience.

Prof Badrul Imam

It has been an educated morning I must say. We in Bangladesh in fact as far as coalmining is concerned are actually learning and we have to learn a lot about coal mining.

Experience of coalmining in Bangladesh is of just two or three years, which is nothing compared to what Indian has – around 200 years of experience.

So I believe the seminars or forums like this should be held more and more. As far as Bangladeshis are concern, we are really living in a time where one of the largest problems of the nation is energy crisis. We are really really in a very critical moment. The energy availability – the supply side of energy – is very thin I am sorry to say.

I wish I could be more positive and optimistic because in the past we have seen people who were talking about the country’s gas reserves of hundreds of trillion cubic feet (Tcf) and then found that it is not true and our own gas reserve is really not as much as we require.

We really don’t other options – options are very limited. We have neither good options for hydropower nor for nuclear power although the present government is really serious talking about nuclear.

So where should we look for this crisis to be solved. At this moment I think coal is the only resource that Bangladesh can seriously take up.

Speaking really candidly - there are two groups of people each presenting pictures whatever they like regarding the method of coalmining.

Explaining candidly without taking either of the both sides – Bangladesh is not in a very comfortable position for its coalmining although there is no option other than coalmining - I must say.

And you see there is underground coalmining in Bangladesh running for last two years and there has been serious problems from the very beginning of this mine.

There has been serious water flooding and toxic gas emissions, which has reduced coal production to half than expected.

Besides, there has been problem of mining as the seams are thick that turns the mining difficult.

So people who are engaged with this mining are not very comfortable about this mine.

Apart from thickness of coal seams there are other problems like high heat and water coming out of the mine.

So the experience of coalmining in Bangladesh is really not pleasant.

About the open pit mining –well this is very good option for any mining company or organization because the recovery is very high – about 90 per cent.

But Bangladesh has its peculiar problem in open pit mining.

Because Bangladesh is very small country and the coal deposits in this country is concurrently in even smaller areas in Rangpur and Dinajpur districts where all the deposits are lying.

So you cannot really thinking of digging too much in a very small area –this is problem number one.

Problem number two is that these areas are very densely populated compared to what we have seen in Australia, or Germany or even in India.

We have 1000 persons living in one square kilometer, compared to three in Australia and 330 in India.

Problem number three is that the agricultural land that lies above these coal deposits tremendously fertile and the people are really very dependent on these fields.
.
Problem number four is water-bearing layer in Bangladesh coalmines, which does not exist even in Indian mines.

Having said all these difficulties in underground or open pit mining I don’t contemplate to suggest that no we should not go for coalmining because we don’t have any other option.

Coalmining is a must for Bangladesh.

Now its up to miners how they will mitigate this problem.

It is big challenge for any mining organization – be it a private or public – to handle this mine.

But the point is these problems have to be solved to the best of their ability to pick the coal out of the ground to save the country from an enormous energy crisis.

Quamsrul Islam Siddiqui

For the energy security of Bangladesh and for the development of the country’s western zone we must have to go for exploration of coal.

There is no doubt about it.

And in fact in doing so as Professor Jayanta said mining could be a good industry, a source of social responsibility and a means for major livelihood.

We should have to work into that direction. I have gone through the website of Phulbari coalmine and got so much extensive works have done on environmental issues and also on social impact studies,

It is not that we have to talk emotionally or without basic understanding of the coal reserve there and about the mining process.

It is not that someone should speak casually on the way the works have done.

Now it’s a part of our decision makers particularly in the Petrobangla and also in the Bureau of Mineral Development who are entrusted for licensing of mine.

In fact there capacity should be enhanced in such a way that they understand the reality the environmental and social responsibilities.

And our environmental law is quite comprehensive that can ensure that the environment can really taken care of.

Social responsibilities has to be ensured as professor Jayanta has mentioned that there is no way for lapsing it

We have problems in many ways like we have arsenic problems in ground water but working on its mitigation measures.

And at the end if we look into real development of that area we should go for exploration of coal.

In fact in northern area and western region there is practically no fuel source for power and we have major uncertainty on fuel source.

Practically if we go for power plant based on coal professor Jayanata has mentioned how it is possible to go for clean fuel technology and also go for super critical power plants where we can reduce carbon emissions substantially.

This will echo the same feeling of Dr Khursheed Ul-Islam, senior adviser GTZ-SED who on other day in a seminar, has mentioned and also professor Nazrul Islam of the Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Centre (IIFC) – to go for coal-based power plant as early as possible.

So there are substantial advantage and benefits we should look into and as it has been mentioned by Maqbul-E-Elahi that if we start today it would take seven years to get coal on the ground so let’s have a serious look from our decision makers point of view that based on good environmental studies, social impact analysis and also ensuring the benefits of the local people who would be affected there.

There are definitely clear solutions and we can go for exploring vast resources, which can change shape of Bangladesh.

I believe in that way and we can work together in this connection.

Shireen Kamal Sayeed

I on behalf of the UNDP welcome you all to this roundtable. While talking about this roundtable to someone I was told point-blankly what is UNDP’s agenda in organizing this?

I was not shocked because I knew that it reflected the sharp divide this country has currently over the issue of how we are going to use coal in Bangladesh or whether at all we are going to use it or not.

I told the person that UNDP’s agenda is to listen to the people -- to listen to all schools of thought.

There are two schools of thoughts – very sharply divided. One says that there enormous deficit of energy and Bangladesh has energy security for the future as it stands now.

Therefore we need to develop cheap source of energy because fuel cost in the international market is very high and we cannot just sit around letting to coal lye there without utilizing it.

In order to develop we need to have that coal extracted and used.

But there is again debate whether it should be exported or used internally. I think the government has made a decision that it will be used internally.

But then there is another school of thoughts composed of environmentalists as well as experts in many fields who believe what’s the point taking out coal. Why should we use it now why not bring some other cheap source of energy and use it and let the coal lye there for 50 years or 100 years.

We can use it when the time comes, it is going to cause environmental pollution if we extract it. It is going to displace hundreds of thousands people and the whole questions of compensations and other things.

And again there is another school of thoughts who lies in between who are saying well we can use and at the same time should be taken care of other things.

The reason the UNDP has organized this roundtable is so that the people come to the table and we can here from both sides of divides.

As the people who are going to be affected, those who live in the coalmining areas and we have brought them with us. These people are here to listen to you.

And the whole purpose is that they can arrive at policy decisions in an informed manner.

So without coming to gloze over the issue of coal as in the past we hope we can take forward the discussions fruitfully.

Khalil R Chowdhury

The energy crisis that led to an acute electricity shortage is the main problem towards the economic development in Bangladesh.

We know that the country’s development would face a serious set back if we cannot produce at least double or triple of electricity than what we have today.

The gas crisis is now looming large though some people said earlier that we have hundreds of Tcf gas reserve.

So coal can be the main source of the country’s energy needs if we can extract properly from underground.

We have coal reserves in a very small area. We can go for more exploration of coal.

Everybody of us knows the status of the country’s lone underground coalmine at Barapukuria.

Though 10 years have already elapsed after initiative the coalmining we are yet to see that that coal is being extracted properly.

I don’t think that proper mining method considering the geological structure was adopted in Barapukuria coalmining.

We are seeing a lot of disaster, a lot of people have already died. There is no guarantee too that the mine would work properly in future.

Besides, 90 per cent of the Barapukuria coal reserves would remain underground and only 10 per cent could be extracted.

If we apply the same underground mining method in other mines we will have to keep a major portion of the coal reserves beneath the ground.

We must look forward for an adequate mining method and a quick decision, after completion of all necessary debates and discussions, is essential for the betterment of the country’s people especially of the people of the concerned locality.

Gary Lye

I am honored to be present at this gathering and to hear the very learned presentations and debate.

It is extremely important to have roundtables like this to allow people to share their views and gather information.

The coal sector in Bangladesh is now 28 years old but it's true that it really hasn't delivered much coal. However, the problems of the coal sector are not in the "mines" but in the "minds" of men.

There has been a whirlpool of agendas and questionable decisions that have caused confusion, pain and lost opportunity.

As Dr Tamim said, we need to have straight thinking and lots of dialogue not parallel streams of monolog.

Fortunately the way forward for the coal sector is prescriptive. For instance the coal deposits that we know well, being Barapurkuria and Phulbari, are good quality and can be mined using proven methods and technology. Asia Energy in fact took journalists and experts from Bangladesh to see such mining in Australia and Germany.

The environment and social issues for the Bangladesh coal mines are also manageable.

The local community should take heart in the fact that the Government is about to adopt a National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy and Plan. This has been over 12 months in the making and is based on the highest international standards, the same standards followed by Asia Energy in its feasibility study for the Phulbari Coal Project.

All companies, whether public, private or international will have to follow this policy which ensures not just compensation but livelihood restoration programs involving training, employment opportunities and many years of monitoring.

Our company and I personally (after 4 years of effort) look forward to seeing and being apart of the coal sector development. Thank you.

KB Ahmed

Basically technologically I don’t see any issues to be raised excepting the people who have come from that area – they have raised one single issue I think very Important that is what happens to them.

And if we can communicate with them and involve them in the national planning and their role in national planning and their contribution and sacrifices and quantity it I am sure and they already have stated that they will cooperate.

Bit we have in the past 35 years and before that neglected them ignored that and we never treated them as human beings.

I think the government when they make any planning, decision they policy framework should include people.

Growth in the GDP and energy development is for the people and - if these are for the people they should know about it, they should know what they are getting, they should know what they are sacrificing for it.

Regarding technology the worldwide has same problem. In every country they have the same problem.

Methodology has the same consequences and I think the investors would like to get their return and nobody should blame for this.

And government on their own cannot develop energy resources alone they have to bring in investors – private sector and the private sector would like to get some profit out of it.

And for this profit they should also understand the local problems and they should also recognize the rights of the people.

Mahfuzur Rahman

We are talking policies and professor Tamim has just now said that there should be solid studies, behind developing policies.

What I am insisting in different deliberations of such meetings is that we have so many research work already done on Phulbari coalmine. And instate of looking into those recommendations and findings and those discussions on findings we don’t pick them up.

Every time we meet every time we say one and the same thing instate of going into the technical details.

So from this forum today I again like to request if you have any of these type of thing next occasion please bring findings of those studies to the floor first and then discuss.

Eunus Akon

For any mining we will have social impact, environmental impact and we well have to see after mitigating all these impacts what is the economic benefit we are going to get.

So considering things we will have to decide the mining method and all other things.

I mentioned on other occasions that even in the coal policies so far I can remember that by 2035 it has been estimated that we need around 1200 million tonnes of coal for having our electricity from the coal fired power plants.

So if we really can go for open-pit mining that should be always preferred as through underground mining we would not be able to get much resources.

The company or investors who are interested for open pit mining for maximizing the resources their cases should get a kind of preference.

Another things I like to point that now days a point is always coming out in talk shows and discussions that we will do something or we will do all of things ourselves.

And till that we should wait to develop our own expertise and we will wait for that
Period then we will do.

Then if you want to ensure access of electricity for every citizens of Bangladesh by 2020 and at the same time wait to efficient than how it would be possible? It is very ridiculous.

Moreover there are like to point the USA produces around 1,000 million tonnes of coal every year. And China produces little more than 2,000 million tonnes of coal yearly.

But China’s casualties from the mining accidents are 50 times higher than that in the USA.

This is because of technological development and state-of the art facility and instruments the USA is having that the China don’t have or don’t care for that.

We know coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel so lot of measures are to be taken, lot of things are to be monitored and state-of art facilities are required to develop these coal sectors.

Otherwise our environment and other impacts we cannot mitigate.

As we cannot do these by ourselves due to dearth in manpower should encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) and at the same time have to develop the efficiency of our own people.

Forkan Begum

Viability study on coalmine is very important. And we should not mention fictitious figures on coal deposits.

The findings of the viability study should make public.

The viability includes the economics issue of the people who now grow foods on the land over the coal deposits.

And why should take decision right now. Lt the technology developed first.

We are doing much on an imaginative issue destroying the established crop industry– these should not be done.

And our own people – the local engineers, should develop these coalmines. Why we are thinking of the foreigners keeping local engineers unemployed?

If necessary we can send 100 engineers to the USA to get training on it. Indians are mining in their barren lands.

Mokhlesur Rahman

Government is the owner of the resources beneath the ground. If the government takes decision to develop the coal resources to ensure interests of the nation the sufferings of local people should be looked into.

It would also be helpful if the government discussed with the local people prior to initiate the mining development.

But unfortunately we are being confused and remained in the dark about the coalmining activities.

It needs to be looked after that the local people are not affected.

Anowar Hossain Mondol

We feel that energy is required to keep the economy momentum. And the technology for exploiting energy resources should be adopted by experts as it is being done elsewhere in the world.

Mukul Habrom

There is always pain, while conducting development works. To accelerate the pace of development coalmines need to be developed.

The people of the locality have support to develop coalmines adopting open-pit mining method.

And at the end everybody should know the fact that if someone wants to take something he needs to pay something in reverse.

Abdul Hakim

The people of the locality needed to be understood first. We the people of the locality cannot leave our homeland abruptly following directions.

We can forget what was happened in the past. But for future the people needs specific information.

Farid Hossain

The sum of this roundtable discussion according to me is that we require huge electricity to meet the development goals as set by the government and the people of the country.

To meet this mounting electricity demand and ensure economic growth we need to develop coalmines and the decision regarding this should be take right now.

While developing coalmines the issues like technology, the interest of the local people who will be affected must also have to be looked into.

National interests should be the center of all these activities.

If the economy grows over 7% who benefits more – people or the company – these issues were also discussed.

Mollah Amzad

I thank you all for participating in this roundtable organized jointly by the Energy & Power and the UNDP.

Through this roundtable I tried to get the people having different opinions sit together and discuss on the coal sector.

But unfortunately this is not going to happen.

I will, however, continue my effort to bring them altogether in future.