The Power Division will place a proposal for the approval of the construction of the 400MW gas-based combined cycle Bibiyana south power plant in Habiganj at the cabinet committee meeting on public purchase tomorrow.
For the first time, the government will be using the Energy Development and Maintenance Fund, which was created by introducing an additional amount with the price of electricity to finance this project, to build the plant in place of the cancelled Bibiyana 1 project with Summit Group.
“The gas-based power plant project was planned considering the availability of gas. We forwarded the proposal last week for the approval of the cabinet committee on purchase,” Power Secretary Monowar Islam told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“The plant is expected to help improve access to electricity, reliability and ensure quality supply to the consumers,” he added.
The government has already selected Isolux Ingenieria SA of Spain and Samsung C&T Corporation of South Korea, which were the lowest bidders out of six in the tender call, to build the plant as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors.
Isolux and Samsung were selected as the as the lowest bidders at $288 million.
The Power Development Board (PDB), under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, will implement the project.
“We hope we will be able to sign the companies as EPC contractors by September this year,” Power Development Board Chairman Md Abduhu Ruhulla told the Dhaka Tribune.
“After signing of the EPC contract, the PDB requires owner’s engineer for the implementation of this project. Construction period for this project is 900 days, including a simple cycle completion time of 720 days,” he said.
Around Tk1,800 crore will be used from the consumers’ bill fund created by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, the Energy Development and Maintenance Fund, for constructing the power plant.
The PDB has already invited the expression of interest (EOI) from reputed international engineering consulting firms for providing consultancy services as owner’s engineer for the construction of the plant. The last date for EOI submission is July 16.
