Bangladesh's Summit Group, GE Start Power Plant
A joint venture of Summit Group, Bangladesh's leading power producer, and a unit of General Electric Co has started a plant initially supplying up to 240 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the country's national grid as it seeks to plug a shortfall in electricity supply.
Bangladesh's current production capacity of 7,000 MW falls far short of its demand of 10,000 MW, with only 65 percent of its 160 million population having access to the national grid.
The new combined cycle plant is located in the north western district of Sylhet, 278 kilometers (174 miles) from Dhaka. It will eventually produce another 130 MW and will be completed by September 2015.
The $310 million project will raise electricity output by the power unit of Summit, a conglomerate whose activities range from shipping to communications, to nearly 1,200 MW, almost 12 percent of Bangladesh's total, and will take the group's total investment in the power sector to $1.2 billion.
Muhammad Aziz Khan, managing director of the unit and chairman of Summit Group, told Reuters the project was financed in part via 15 year loans of $70 million each from International Finance Corp, a commercial arm of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank.
The loans were provided at an interest rate of around 4.65 percent.
"The remaining $100 million is equity, of which Summit has provided 80 percent and the rest 20 percent comes from General Electric," Aziz said.
The plant will use 50 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Bibiyana gas field owned by state-managed Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corp (Petrobangla). The field is operated by Chevron (CVX).
It is just one of a number of plants being opened by Summit.
(Editing by David Holmes)
