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Rental Power Plants

Plan to extend deadlines as projects not completed

Sharier Khan
Even though there is no legal provision, the power ministry plans to extend deadlines of the contracts by several months for five failed rental power projects, totalling 200 megawatt (MW), which are due to expire within a month.
As per the agreements on these power projects, which were approved by the cabinet of the caretaker government, these should be cancelled as the two local contractors— Energy Prima and Venture Energy Resources— failed to commercially launch them.
In addition, the Power Development Board (PDB) is supposed to liquidate the performance security deposit submitted by the two contractors for their failure. Energy Prima had furnished nearly S10 million worth of deposit and Venture another $1 million.
But the ministry has been handling their failure very casually and has been instructing the PDB to save the two defaulters.
Energy Prima of Hosaf Group and Venture Energy Resources-a consortium of two companies Kaltimax and GBB—were selected despite their lack of experience.
Energy Prima chief Moazzem
Hossain, one of the accused in the Barapukuria scam case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission, is being backed by a strong lobby in the government His brother is a former BNP lawmaker from Feni. Energy Prima was awarded four power projects--Shahjlbazar 50MW, Kumargaon 50MW, Fenchuganj 50MW and Bogra 20MW--which are scheduled to run for three years. Of them, the first three agreements were signed on January 16 and the last on January 24. Their Commercial Operation Date (COD) was May 15 and May 23 and their Performance Security Deposits against each of these projects are set to expire between August 21 and September 14.
Venture Energy signed a 33MW power project for Bhola on January 16 with the COD set for May 15. Venture's performance deposit is set to expire on September 24.
But till date the companies failed to launch any power plant commercially. Their failure forced the PDB to serve them with notice of default and intent to terminate contracts.
As per the agreements, the contractor may be penalised at the rate of $500 per megawatt a day for its failure to achieve COD. This penalty may be charged for up to 60 days but the total sum will not exceed 10 percent of the total rent in three years. According to the PDB, all of these five contracts have failed to achieve COD within these 60 days. These contracts should fall flat automatically with the expiry of the performance deposit period.
The PDB in a note to the power m inistry on August 12 wrote that the agreements with these rental power companies may be cancelled for failure to achieve COD.
However, the PDB contradictorily suggested that the COD for Fenchuganj, Bogra and Bhola rental plants may be rescheduled to October 31 with the condition of $500 penalty per megawatt a day. In such a case the two companies need
to submit an additional performance security. This note was written as per another note of tire ministry prepared on August 11.
For the Kumargaon and Shahjibazar plant, the PDB believes that these could come into commercial operation before the expiry of the performance deposit period. However, sources said the Kumargaon project is tangled by controversy while the progress of Shahjibazar project is still questionable.
Energy Prima launched the Kumargaon plant on test basis but could not generate 50MW for 100 hours steadily to pass a dependable capacity test by the PDB. The PDB committee found a maximum generation of 48.5MW for 72 hours.
However, earlier this month, Hosaf chief Moazzem claimed to the power secretary that his Kumargaon plant achieved COD; the PDB committee refused to accept it. The power secretary then assigned a committee led by the PDB chairman to resolve the matter.
"But this is a technical matter that should be solved by a technical committee, not the PDB chairman. There is computer data that can easily prove whether the Kumargaon plant generated 50MW at 0.85 percent plant factor for 100 hours," said a source.
The power ministry in its August 11 note suggested that the revised COD for Fenchuganj 50MW project
may be divided into two. The COD for the first 25MW may be October 15 and the second 25MW may be November 25.
The revised COD for Shahjibazar plant may also be divided into two-one on August 15 and another on August 20. However, it has already failed to meet the so-called August 15 deadline.
The ministry believes that the Bogra 20MW plant would come into operation sometime in September.
The Bhola plant may be commissioned in October even though there has been virtually no progress attheplantsite.
"Ute power ministry is asking PDB to follow certain actions regarding these projects, instead of asking the PDB to take actions as per the law,” quipped asource.
Power purchase from these plants will be costly but the power ministry had convinced the caretaker government's cabinet to approve these projects on the plea that these would surely come into operation within 120 days of signing of contracts as the penalty for failure ofthe contractor is very high.
The government signed seven rental power plant contracts with four companies in January and one in April. Of the seven, only one 40MW plant in Khulna, installed by British company Aggreko, came into commercial operation on June 12. The plant was supposed to come into operation on May 28.