Ashuganj Power Station Company Limited on Thursday signed an agreement with a joint-venture formed by Inelectra International AB of Sweden and TSK Electronica y Electricidad SA of Spain, to install a 450MW combined cycle power plant to be run by natural gas at Ashuganj Power Station premises.
Under the contract, the Swedish and Spanish joint venture company would install the power plant in 27 months.
And Ashuganj Power Station Company is expected to start supplying electricity from the new plant to the national grid on January 15, 2015.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, AMA Muhith said that although as the finance minister he always attached importance to the issue the power crisis remained unresolved.
Power secretary AKM Abul Kalam Azad and other power sector officials also attended the signing ceremony.
The power crisis remains where it was three years back, he said.
Muhith, however, attributed fuel-oil price escalation in the international market for the continuing crisis in the country in generating and supplying power.
APSCL would, said its officials, sign an Export Credit Agency VAT Financing contract with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation for coordination service to get a credit support of $315 million at an estimated rate of interest of 3.3 per cent from different agencies to install the power plant.
Euler Hermes Credit
Insurance of Germany,
Belgian Export Credit Agency, ONDD, Spanish state-run insurance company CESCE and the Wold Bank’s Multilevel Investment Guarantee Agency will provide the credit for the project.
Ashuganj Power Company would be required to repay the credit and interest worth $ 393 in 10 years with a grace period of three years.
For its full swing operation, the power plant would consume 48.80 million cubic feet of gas a day.
On June 4, 2011, Ashuganj Power Company floated the international tender for the engineering, procurement and construction of the power plant.
The bids were opened on October 29, 2011.
Now, Ashuganj Power Company runs nine power plants with a combined installed generation capacity of 777MW and the de-rated capacity of 573MW of electricity.