Energy & Power

Snapshots

Human Chain to Protest Chevron’s Seismic Survey

A human chain was formed to protest Chevron’s planned seismic survey work in Lauachhara forest at Srimongol recently.

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), Shonali Boy’s Club, Shomokal Shurid Shomabesh and Conscious Civil Society Committee organized the human chain. Co-management Committee of Nishorgo and Sujon also joined to express their solidatary.

Among others, Wildlife Conservationist Pavel Partho, Nishorgo Co-management Committee Head Prof. Rafiqur Rahman, Syed Manibul Hasan Polash of TIB and civil society members Noharendro Kor and Prof. Komolkoli Choudhury took part in the program.

Myanmar to Prioritize China, India over Bangladesh for Gas

Myanmar will attach priority to agreements for export of gas to China and India instead of Bangladesh. The Southeast Asian neighbor will consider exporting gas to Bangladesh only after meeting the demands of China and India or if the country finds new gas fields.

Myanmar’s stance on gas export to Bangladesh was communicated to the Foreign Affairs Secretary, Md Touhid Hossain, when he visited the neighboring country recently.

The Foreign Ministry wrote a letter to the Energy and Mineral Resources Division on Myanmar’s position.

Prof M Tamim, Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Energy said: We will now contact Myanmar authorities directly. For now, we are thinking of signing a memorandum of understanding on gas with Myanmar.’

Chevron Distributes Sanitary Latrines at Komolganj

Chevron distributed sanitary latrines among 600 families in Komolganj Pourashova and Komolganj Union Parishad. The sanitation distribution program was inaugurated by Komolganj Pourashova Chairman Abu Akkas Ansari.

Present in the program were Chevron’s Director Naser Ahmed, MB GPS Wanwit, Chevron Community Officer Baddrudoza Badar, UP Chairman Golam Kibria Shafi and others.

Earlier, Chevron distributed sports’ equipments to four high schools in Komolganj.

Geeta Pasi visits Bibiyana

US Charge d' Affaires Geeta Pasi visited Bibiyana gas-field recently. She was accompanied by Petrobangla’s Chairman Jalal Ahmed.

Chevron Bangladesh President Steve Wilson, External Affair’s Manager Zulfikar Ahmed Choudhury and Komolganj Upazilla employee Sultana Yasmin welcomed her to the gas-field.

Geeta Pasi visited the Chevron operated gas field’s process plants in both the North and South pad.

Petrobangla Holds Roadshow on March 30-31

Petrobangla is going to hold its planned international roadshow in the city on March 30-31, aiming to attract foreign oil companies to participate in the 3rd round hydrocarbon block-bidding.

The roadshow was originally scheduled for March 23-24, but Petrobangla shifted the schedule responding to the requests from the potential bidders due to Easter Saturday.

However, Petrobangla failed to secure permission of the Energy Ministry to hold two other planned international road-shows abroad. The state-owned hydrocarbon agency had offered to hold one of the overseas roadshows in Singapore and another in either the US or Canada.

But the Energy Ministry was found reluctant to give its go-ahead, as it said that all the previous roadshows, held abroad during the 2nd round bidding, failed to achieve the target.

Petrobangla invited international bidding on February 15 asking the international oil companies (IOCs) to submit their respective offers by May 7, 2008 for deep-sea oil and gas exploration. About 20 IOCs have shown keen interest to participate in the roadshow to be held in Dhaka.

BPC Sees Nearly $1b Loss

Bangladesh's state-owned oil company will post a record net loss of nearly one billion dollars in the current fiscal year due to sky-rocketing global crude oil prices.

The Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), the nation's monopoly oil importer and distributor, sells fuel at prices set by the government that do not reflect the purchase cost.
"With oil prices now above 100 dollars a barrel, losses will be huge in coming days. We expect our total losses this fiscal year (to June) will be around 65 billion taka (950 million dollars)," said BPC Chairman Anwarul Karim.

The loss will be almost double that of last year, he said.

Gulf-India Gas Pipeline Feasible: Expert

A deepwater pipeline designed to transport large quantities of natural gas 'economically' from the Gulf region to India, straight across the Indian Ocean is now feasible, an expert has said.

The economics of SAGE deepwater pipeline system are attractive and the risks are now demonstrably low", Peter Roberts, Technical Director of South Asia Gas Enterprise (SAGE), said at the 13th Annual Middle East Gas Summit in Doha recently.

The depth of the Indian Ocean along this route was beyond the economic pipe-lay limit until the mid-1990s, when the enabling technology was developed and a deepwater Code of Design Practice was issued to the industry, said Roberts.

Number of Bidders for Bibiyana Plant Now 3

The number of pre-qualified bidders, who will take part in the tenders for setting up the 330-450 megawatts Bibiyana independent power plant, has come down to three from four as the government has approved the merger of two bidders.

The Power Division on March 4 approved the Power Cell recommendations for merger of Korea Electric Power Corporation of South Korea and a consortium of Powertek Berhad of Malaysia and Siemens Project Ventures GmbH of Germany.

Kepco and the consortium of Powertek and Siemens were earlier declared pre-qualified along with two bidders from the US – AES Corporation and Chevron Corporation – to take part in the technical and financial tenders for setting up the large IPP.
In the merged consortium, Powertek will be the lead sponsor while Siemens and Kepco its partners.

The merger of pre-qualified bidders, however, caused controversy as many industry people fear that such merger would make the affair less competitive and the tariff of power offered by the bidders would be high.
But power officials say they do not think the merger will make the affair less competitive. “Rather the opposite may happen. Maybe the merged consortium will be in a better position to offer a lower price and to outwit them, other bidders may also reduce their offer,” said a high official of the Power Cell defending the decision to allow the merger.

Talks on $330m WB Fund for Energy Project Soon

The government will start negotiations with the World Bank early next month to obtain US $330 million worth fund for an integrated energy sector development project in the country.

A bank team will arrive in Dhaka in early April for completing the negotiation.

"We will set up a 300-megawatt (MW) capacity power plant and a transmission line to add electricity to the national grid. The project also includes laying of a pipeline to supply gas to the new plant," said a Power Division official.

A mission from the Washington based lending agency that visited Dhaka last month pledged the fund to finance the $400 million integrated energy sector project.
Sources in the division said the World Bank has raised the amount of fund from $275 million, committed earlier, following a request from the government.

Plan for Waste Power in Limbo

Tender process for generating power from waste has not been completed despite an initiative the Power Cell took 10 years ago.

The Power Cell, an agency under the Power Division, invited bids in February 1998 from companies to produce electricity from garbage.

Six companies submitted proposals after the deadline had been extended five times. The companies were American Business Corporation for Development of the US, Belgium's Seghers Better Technology for Solid + Air NV, Aarcee Holdings of Singapore, Malaysian entity Merchant Trade Asia Consortium, McConnell International of New Zealand and Bangladeshi company Jaya Vegetable Oil.

A local representative of one of the bidders said that there had been no progress in work after tender submission. “Nor has anybody been nominated for the job. And Power Cell did not tell us anything," he said.

Power Cell Director General Abdul Jalil said that the issue was currently being supervised by Dhaka City Corporation and the Department of Environment. "I am not aware of any development."

Ibrahim Sabir, CEO of Sabir Traders, the local agent of Singapore's Aarcee Holdings, said the Power Cell did not take any decision earlier due to political influence. He informed that the DCC took a new initiative for waste management in 2003.

"A feasibility study has also been done. It is unknown what the DCC is doing about generating electricity from waste. We failed to get any reply from the DCC despite contacting it several times in 2004," Sabir said.

He said that up to 60 MW electricity could be produced from waste generated in the DCC area.

Okland Wants to Initiate Explorations in Blocks 3, 6

The US-based Okland International has renewed its interest to initiate oil and gas explorations in onshore gas blocks 3 and 6, which were earlier awarded to them during the country's second bidding round in 1997.

It has commitment to invest over US$30 million to develop these two onshore gas blocks.

The company Chairman J Wetwiska conveyed the interest through a letter to M Tamim, the Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor, recently.

"Okland is still extremely interested in and committed to the development of blocks 3 and 6. Okland will be very grateful for any guidance or assistance that you can provide in the future," Wetwiska, also the President of Okland, noted in his letter.

The company representative in Dhaka also held talks with the Energy Secretary Mohammad Mohsin to move forward Okland's quest to initiate exploration in the country's onshore gas blocks.

UK, UNDP Starts US$ 120M Development Project

To improve the livelihoods and living conditions of three million urban poor and extremely poor people, especially women and girls, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) has initiated a US$ 120 million (approximately 840 crore taka) development project called, ‘Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR)’ with Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) of the Government of Bangladesh including the concerned municipality and city corporations.

The project continuing till March 2015 will cover 30 towns including Dhaka City Corporation. The project will support local capacity for the development and implementation of poverty reduction strategies at town level. Links to financial institutions, such as local banks and micro-finance bodies, to provide access to a wide range of financial services by community groups, including housing improvements and business development support will also be provided through the project. It will ensure that the implementation of pro-poor urban development and poverty reduction strategies at town level influence policy development at the national level.

This project aims to mobilize the urban poor communities and groups to create healthy living environments and support urban poor families to acquire resources, knowledge and skills to increase their incomes and assets. The project also tends to deliver benefits to poor people through pro-poor urban policy.

“As part of the global commitment made through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), UNDP will continue assisting Bangladesh to fulfill the promise and we are thankful to the UK Government for its support to eradicate poverty”, said UNDP Country Director Manoj Basnyat.

The Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR) project builds on the experiences of the earlier UNDP funded Local Partnerships for Urban Poverty Reduction Project (2000-2007).

Grid Failure

Most areas in the south-eastern part of the city, including Motijheel commercial area, were without electricity for around 13 hours on March 4 after the tripping of two major power transmission lines.

The Maniknagar grid sub-station tripped at around 4:30am after a transformer in the Maniknagar-Madartek distribution line of the Dhaka Electric Supply Authority, that supplies auxiliary power to the grid sub-station, tripped.
The transformer tripped during the seasonal nor’wester. After the tripping of the sub-station, the Maniknagar-Bangabhaban and Maniknagar-Narinda transmission lines, that get power from the sub-station, also tripped, resulting in power outages in Madartek, Kajla, Sayedabad, Jatrabari, Motijheel, Fakirapool, Basabo, Gulistan, Gopibagh, some parts of the old town and Banghabhaban.

The power supply to Banghabhaban was disrupted for two minutes after the outage at around 7:30am. The supply was restored immediately through alternative lines from the New Ramna sub-station.

The officials of the Power Grid Company, which handles the grid line, arranged alternative auxiliary power supply to the Maniknagar grid and restored the two grid lines by around 4:00 pm. The Maniknagar-Narinda grid line was restored by 11:00am.

Besides power outages, most parts of the south-eastern areas also suffered shortage or lack of water as a large number of electricity-powered pumps of the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority remained inoperative because of lack of power.

Japan Supports Nuke Power Projects in Bangladesh

Japan has assured Bangladesh of providing support to future nuclear energy projects in Bangladesh. "Japan will be happy to support clean energy projects including nuclear energy in Bangladesh," Taro Aso, Chairman of the Japan-Bangladesh Parliamentary League, told Foreign Advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury when they met in Tokyo.

"While there were some reservations in Japan about anything nuclear, now Japanese people are persuaded that the time for nuclear energy has come," said former Japanese Foreign Minister Taro.

Earlier, the Foreign Advisor had a meeting with President of Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) Akihiro Nishimura, and discussed the possibility of assistance for the construction of the planned Padma bridge in Bangladesh.