Indecision on the part of the government has kept the London based GCM Resources Plc hanging around in Bangladesh for nearly 6 years since the firm submitted its scheme to explore Phulbari coalmine, following a decade long thorough study.
The contract signed with the firm in 1994 has a provision for the government to grant approval within three months of the submission of the feasibility study and development scheme.
Mr Gary Lye CEO of GCM Resources said that "The scheme was submitted on October 2nd 2005. But we are still awaiting the approval. It is the time for the government to give the approval as the country needs fuel to generate power and move the country forward.
Mr Gary said that the approval was being delayed only due to bureaucratic red tape. Further delay is likely to make the power shortage more acute resulting in bleak prospect for Bangladesh to become a cherished middle income country by 2021.
He said that the government should prod the bureaucracy to remove all bottlenecks from issuing the approval as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the government opted for import of coal to meet the requirements until the coal is extracted from home fields. At the same time it was also mulling to go for commercial exploration of the energy resource.
Mr Towfiq e Elahi Chowdhury adviser to the prime minister on energy affairs said that "Imports of coal to meet immediate requirement and exploration of the resource for future needs, both are important to us. But we need to know more positive and negative aspects of explorations."
The observations of the energy adviser implied that the government would take some more time to reach a decision on extraction of coal, said a participant at the seminar. The energy authorities in Bangladesh have recently opted for exploration of coal as primary fuel in generation of electricity as the recent oil fired quick and rental plants have proved the concerns to be much costly.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Power Development Board has started moving actively for implementation of a plan to set up 13 coal fired power plants at seven different locations to generate up to 7,800 MW electricity by 2015. Despite a proven reserve of 3.0 billion tonnes of coal in five fields, country now extracts around 1.0 million tonnes annually in Barapukuria coal field only. The coal extracted from Barapukuria is used in 250 MW power plant at the minesite
Mr Gary said that the Phulbari coal can support generation of up to 4,000 MW of electricity from plants to be set up at the mine site at lower cost. The mine will reduce poverty in Monga hit northern region develop infrastructure help improve foreign reserves and also balance of payment for the country.
He said that GCM will invest some USD 1.5 billion in exploration of the coalmine where USD 59 million was invested till June 2011. The company as per the agreement will pay USD 7.0 billion in terms of taxes, royalties and duties. The coalmine, with an estimated reserve of more than 570 million tonnes will contribute at least 1.0% of GDP per annum throughout its 35 years life.
Source - The Financial Express
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