State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has said the Payra power plant will be temporarily closed after Monday due to the ongoing coal crisis.
He was speaking at an event in the Khagan area of Savar on Saturday.
Nasrul Hamid said: "A unit of the Payra thermal power station is already closed. After June 5 (Monday), another part will also be shut down due to coal shortage.”
Apart from this, he said that the opening of the LCs has been delayed and it will take at least 20 to 25 days to import coal.
Loadshedding has increased in the country due to the shutdown of several power plants, and there is about 1,700MW of loadshedding currently, said the state minister.
Earlier, one of the two units of the 1,320 MW thermal power plant was shut down on May 25 due to the coal shortage.
The power plant, a China-Bangladesh joint venture, began commercial operation in 2020, with China National Machinery Import and Export Company (CMC) providing loans for purchasing coal from Indonesia to run the plant.
However, the disruption in coal supply occurred when CMC failed to pay outstanding bills of $390 million for coal supply until April.
