The Bangladesh Power Development Board did not pay last two months’ bill to the Barapukuria coal mine company for the coal bought to run the Barapukuria coal power plant, citing excessively high price.
The PDB sent back the invoices for the months of January and February, referring to a recent decision taken by the Power Division of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources requiring the Barapukuria coal mine to follow the international market, particularly the Indonesian coal index, while selling coal.
The Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Limited, under the Energy and Mineral Resources Division of the same ministry, sells its entire production to the Barapukuria coal power plant which is under the Power Division.
‘They are aware about the decision but are still sending invoices in the old format,’ said Abu Bakar Siddique, chief engineer of the Barapukuria coal power plant.
The price of a tonne of coal of the quality supplied by the BCMCL was $127.72 in the Indonesian market on Monday.
In the old format, the coal price is fixed at $176 a tonne, a price considered hugely excessive and set by the immediate past Awami League government.
BCMCL managing director Shaiful Islam Sarkar said that their monthly bill hovered around Tk 200 crore.
‘We are charging according to the old prices because the energy division did not clear its position on the decision made by the power division,’ he said.
Bangladesh’s own coal, extracted from the coal mine in Dinajpur, is in some cases costlier, by up to 77 per cent, than the imported one, due to arbitrary energy pricing by the past Awami League regime.
People were struggling hard to cope with soaring living costs when Awami League last hiked the coal price by more than 35 per cent, citing increase in production cost and need for investment in exploratory and expansion activities of the mine.
Bangladesh’s coal plants mostly use coal imported from Indonesia that is of lower quality compared with the local variety. The category of coal Bangladesh imports usually costs from $72.24 to $92.87.
The BCMCL authorities justified the price, highlighting the need to increase profits to pay taxes and dividend to the government and incentivise the BCMCL officials and workers.
The calorific value of local coal is 6,137 kcal/kg.
Besides its 250 staff, the BCMCL has to pay its Chinese contractor with 1,100 mine workers. The main activities of the coal mine, from designing the coal extraction plan to supervising workers, are done by Chinese workers under contracts with the China National Machinery Import and Export Company.
After the coal field was discovered in 1985, the BCMCL extended its contract with the Chine company in phases to develop the mine and then extract coal through 2027.
