Tenaga wins Bangladesh power job (5347)

Malaysia's utility giant, Tenaga Nasional Bhd's (TNB), proposal has been selected by the Bangladesh Power Division for the
installation and operations of a 1,320MW coal-fired plant in that country.

The
power plant, to be installed at either Anwara in Chittagong or
Maheshkhali at Cox's Bazar, would be through a joint-venture company
owned by the Power Development Board and TNB, Bangladesh's "New Age"
newspaper reported, quoting unnamed officials. It said the plant would
run on imported coal.

A delegation, led by the Power Division's
additional secretary Md Mofazzel Hossain, will visit Malaysia this
month to finalise the memorandum of understanding on the installation
and operations of the plant, the officials said.

China and Thailand power generation companies have also submitted proposals to the Power Division for the project.

A Power Division official told New Age they preferred the Malaysian proposal as it met the criteria set by the ministry.

"Therefore, we're going to begin a formal process to implement the project with the Malaysian state agency," he said.

Both
the Chinese and Thai companies wanted to give engineering, procurement
and construction contracts to their own firms while Bangladesh wants to
award the contracts through a tender process, the official said.

"Besides,
they wanted the joint-venture company board to have the majority of the
people from their side, which would have let them to pursue their
interests through the board,' he said.

According to Malaysia's
proposal, the joint-venture company will implement the project on a
build-own-operate scheme, the report said. The power board and TNB will
have equal shares in the project.

The board will be
established with equal number of members from both the state-run power
agencies. The board chairman and managing director will be alternated
periodically with people from both the agencies.

The government
decided to go for joint-venture projects to draw funding for project
implementation, the Power Division official said.

With this,
Dhaka has so far initiated three big coal-fired power projects, each
having 1,320MW power generation capacity, in joint venture with equal
shares with three state-run agencies.

TNB is the biggest power
utility company in Malaysia, with the experience to install and operate
a number of plants, with a combined 12,000MW generation capacity in
Malaysia and Pakistan.

Bangladesh has set a long-range target to generate about 20,000MW power from coal-fired plants by 2030.

According
to the long-term power generation plan drawn up in 2010, the government
will generate 11,250MW electricity using domestic coal and the
remaining amount with imported coal. -- Bernama