Meet over extending tenure of 5 private power plants Tuesday

Highlights

• Orion Power Meghnaghat plant expired on May 2021
• Dutch Bangla Power plant expired on July
• Khulna Power Unit 1 expired on May
• Khulna Power Noapara plant expired on June
• Summit Narayanganj Power Plant Unit 1 expired on April

To extend the tenure of five private power plants by another five years, the proposal processing committee will sit on Tuesday evening.

The five power plants are Orion Power Meghnaghat Limited, Dutch Bangla Power and Associates Limited, Khulna Power Company Unit-2, Khulna Power Company Noapara Plant and Summit Narayanganj Power Plant Unit 1.

A notice, signed by Mohammad Nazmul Abedin, deputy secretary of power division, has been issued to the owners of these plants to attend the meeting to be chaired by secretary of the power division.

The power division source said if the committee approves the proposal of extending the tenure, it will go to the government purchase committee for final approval.

Earlier, on 6 September this year, the cabinet gave approval to extend the tenure of the Quick Enhancement of Electricity and Energy Supply (Special Provision) Act 2010 by five years.

The proposal processing committee has been formed under this act to give proposals to the government to install power plants and extend their tenure on a quick rental basis.

Orion Power Meghnaghat with capacity of 100 megawatt and Dutch Bangla Power with a capacity of 100 megawatt, both owned by Orion Pharma, have expired their power purchase agreement with the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) in May and July respectively this year.

Khulna Power Company's two power plants – Khulna Power Unit 1 with a capacity of 115 megawatt and Khulna Power Noapara Plant with a capacity of 40 Megawatt, owned by United Power and Summit Power, has completed its agreement on 29 May and 1 June respectively this year.

Summit Narayanganj Power Plant Unit 1, fully owned by Summit Power, also completed the tenure on 1 April this year.
At present, the five private power plants are completely shut and that is why the investors in these companies are suffering as the earnings of those came down for non-operation.

So, the owners of these plants were seeking another five years from the power division of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources.

The owner companies of these power plants are listed with the stock exchanges and their shares are being traded regularly.

Khulna Power's share price closed at Tk48.20 at the end of the Monday trading session at the Dhaka Stock Exchange. After the Act was approved on 6 September, its share price jumped by 19% within a few days.

Following the Khulna Power, Summit's and United Power's share price rose by 6% at the DSE.