Reliance Power seals deal for $1bn Bangladesh project
Anil Ambani’s telecom empire may be in dire straits at home but his $1billion plan to set up a generation station in Bangladesh is powering ahead, with the group arm Reliance Power on Thursday closing the deal for Phase-I of the project.
In the first phase, R-Power is setting up a 750 mw gas-fired power plant at Meghnaghat, some 40 km south-east of capital Dhaka, and a linked liquid gas import terminal to fuel the power station at Kutubdia Island.
The company already had a deal with Bangladesh Power Development Board, which is providing land for the power plant, for selling electricity. Thursday’s agreement for liquid gas import terminal, based on floating storage and regasification unit, completes the project contracting process. The terminal will supply liquid gas to the power station and to PetroBangla for marketing to other consumers.
The company has in-principle approval from a consortium of lenders led by Asian Development Bank for funding the project, which will be the largest FDI in Bangladesh.
Reliance Power will use world-class equipment, including advanced 9FA machines supplied by GE it had procured but left unpacked for the Samalkot power project in Andhra Pradesh, which was shelved due to drastic fall in output from Reliance Industries Ltd’s KG-D6 gas field.
The first phase of the Bangladesh project will be commissioned in 24 months from the zero date, in 2018-19 and can power the country’s rising demand for electricity. The MoU for the integrated project was signed in June 2015 in Dhaka during the Bangladesh visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.