FE Report

Eight foreign companies have submitted their bids for installation of a 300-megawatt (mw) Siddhirganj peaking power plant on the closing day last week, official sources said.

No local company or local-foreign joint ventures submitted bids for setting up the gas-fired power plant, said a senior official of the state-owned Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh (EGCB), the implementing authority of the project.

Among the foreign companies four are from China, two from India and one each from South Korea and Spain.

The Chinese companies that submitted bids are - Sino Hydro Corporation, China Machinery Equipment Import and Export Corporation (CMEC), Shangdong Electric Power Engineering Corporation (SPEPSI) and China Minmetals Corporation (CMC).

The two Indian companies are Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and Gammon Sadelmi while South Korean company Hyundai and Spanish Isolux also submitted bids.

"We will initiate evaluating the proposals within next couple of weeks," a senior EGCB official said.

Signing of agreement with the selected bidder would be completed by December 2009, the EGCB officials said.

The state-owned power entities would purchase electricity to be generated from the power plant at a price that would quoted by the selected bidder.

Government would provide land and other necessary infrastructure to facilitate installation of the plant.

Some 30 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas would be required to run the power plant.

The state-owned Petrobangla has assured to supply gas to the plant from June 2011 next.

The International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank (WB) has agreed to provide US$350 million as credit for implementation of the 300MW (2X150) peaking power plant at Siddhirganj.

The multilateral donor agency approved the IDA credit of $350 million for installing the Siddhirganj peaking power plant on October 30, 2008.

The WB will also finance the laying of a 60 km natural gas pipeline from Bakhrabad to Siddhirganj that will improve the reliability of gas supply to the Siddhirganj power plant, and an 11 km electricity transmission line to ensure that power generated from the plant can be distributed to consumers.

Maturity period for this credit is 40 years with a 10-year grace period.