According to official sources, the state-owned Power Development Board (PDB) had initially appointed Spanish-Korean joint venture firm—Isolux Ingenieria of Spain and Samsung C& T Corporation of South Korea—as its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor at a contract value of US$ 288.26 million to install the project within 30 months.
In the first phase, the simple cycle 252.264 MW capacity unit was supposed to come into operation within 24 months and the combined cycle unit of 131.246 MW was scheduled to start operation within 30 months from the signing date of the contract.
But, at one stage of the implementation, the Spanish firm opted out from the deal. Later, an Indian firm joined the consortium with renaming the joint venture as—JV of Samsung C&T Corporation, Korea and Larson and Toubro Limited (L&T), India.
For this, the Power Development Board (PDB) had to sign an amended contract to approve the new Joint Venture as its EPC contractor.
After the development, it was expected the project work will gather pace. But, the new JV failed to create any impression about its efficiency in its work, the officials added.
The issue was discussed in a recent review meeting at the Power Division with Power Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus in the chair.
According to a progress report placed at the review meeting, piling works are going on in the project and 856 units of piles were put in place out of 1281, while the progress in financing is only 14.45 percent.
However, project director Ranada Prasad Roy claimed that the piling work has already been completed and major equipment of the project have already reached the site.
As per the new amended contract, the modified commercial date of operation (COD) was fixed for September 19, 2019 for simple cycle unit while July 29, 2020 for combined cycle unit.
On completion of the project, Ranada Prasad said, the whole project will be evaluated by the authorities concerned and a committee headed by a chief engineer will determine who are responsible for the delay in the project.
“If the EPC contractor is found to be responsible for the delay, the committee will recommend penalty as liquidity damage (LD) for the project,” he added.
The power project will consume 62.55 MMSFD gas which will be supplied from Bibiyana gas field.
The production cost of electricity in the project will be Tk 1.13 kilowatt per hour (kWh) considering the plant factor at 85 percent while the power tariff was estimated to be Tk 4.70 per unit.
The Bibiyana South project’s implementation process started 6-8 years back and it was initially named as Bibiyana-1 and awarded to local power conglomerate Summit Group to implement it as an independent power producer (IPP) plant.
But due to fund constraint and other complications, Summit could not implement the project. Finally, the government terminated the contract with Summit and renamed the project as Bibiyana South Power Plant.