Bangladesh Reportedly Unwilling to Export Its Coal – Paper

Excerpt from report by Bangladeshi newspaper New Age website on 28 February

Energy adviser Tapan Chowdhury on Tuesday [27 February] claimed that the proposed coal policy would be finalised by March, and would ensure that only “surplus coal” could be exported after meeting local demand for 50 years.

Experts said coal export should be banned in the policy. They also claimed that the existing coal reserve of the country cannot meet the local demand for 50 years because the government will not allow any open-pit mining in the country.

“Our experts are now working on the draft of the coal policy formulated by the previous government to ensure how the national interest can best be protected,” Tapan told reporters while replying to the query whether the proposed provision to allow export of 50- 60 per cent of country’s coal would remain in the finalised coal policy.

“First we will ensure that the coal reserve meets our local demand for 50 years, and then we will think of exporting surplus coal. There will be no provision that will allow export of coal without meeting our local demand,” he said.

Tapan said that the policy would be placed before the advisory council once the draft of the coal policy is finalised.

When asked whether this non-elected interim government has the jurisdiction to approve such a policy, he said, “We will scrutinise the laws to ascertain whether we can approve the policy. If we have the authority we will take a decision on it, and if there is a bar we will finalise the policy so that the next elected government can take a decision on it.”

An energy division committee, led by its additional secretary Wahidunnabi, is now working on the coal policy to incorporate recommendations made by noted energy expert Professor M Nurul Islam of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. T

The immediate past BNP-led government halted the finalisation of the policy ? that many believe was designed for benefiting the controversial Asia Energy ? after Professor Islam made a number of recommendations.

He recommended that the government should ensure coal reserve of 50 years for ensuring long-term energy security. [Passage omitted]

The current coal reserve in the country’s five coal-fields is around 2,550 million tonnes. The total coal reserve in Jamalganj coal-field, which is 1,053 million tonnes, is not recoverable.

Experts said that if the government only allows underground mining, only 20 per cent of the reserve of 1,500 million tonnes of coal can be extracted. “In that case the total amount of recoverable coal in the country will be around 300 million tonnes,” said an energy expert of the BUET.

He said the gas reserve in the country is being depleted fast, so the power plants in the country should be coal-based.

“Around 1 million tonnes of coal is needed in a year for producing 250 MW of power. The current electricity shortage in the country is around 2,000 MW. So annually we need at least 4 million tonnes of coal to meet the current demand. In that case we need 400 million tonnes of coal in the next 50 years,” he said.

But the demand for power as well as coal is bound to go up in 50 years time, so there will be shortage of coal even before 50 years, he said. “So Bangladesh is in no position to allow coal export. Even if coal can be extracted in Jamalganj, the quantity will not meet our own demand,” he said.

Although open-pit mining allows extraction of around 80 per cent of the coal from a field, experts have warned that any open-pit mine in the country would bring about environmental disaster as Bangladesh is a densely populated country with a very limited size of cultivable land.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring South Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.