No possibility of countrywide power cut: Secretary

Terming it as a rumour that there will be no power supply across the country during the next three days, Power Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus today said there is no chance of countrywide power cut.

"This is absolutely false that there'll be interruption in power supply during the next three days," he said while speaking at a contract-signing ceremony with Unique Group at Bidyut Bhaban in the city.

Dr Kaikaus urged journalists to aware people not to believe any rumour about power disruption across the country.

He said there might be some cases of disruption locally in some areas due to flood as power transformers have gone under water but there is no possibility of countrywide power cut.

Unique Group signed a contract with the government today to set up a 584MW combined cycle power plant in Meghnaghat in the next three years on build-own-operate basis.

As per the deal, the consortium of Unique Hotel and Resorts Ltd, GE Capital Global Energy Investment BV and Strategic Finance Ltd will invest $520 million to set up the plant from which the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will purchase electricity for 22 years.

Unique Hotel and Resorts Ltd, a sister concern of Unique Group, holds 64.98 per cent stake in the project while GE Capital Global Energy Investment BV, a subsidiary of GE, USA, holds 30 percent stake while the Strategic Finance holds 4.95 percent.

The levelised tariff for the electricity was set at 3.6923 US Cents per kilowatt hour (each unit) if the plant uses natural gas with 84 percent plant factor.

The tariff will be 6.8098 US Cents per kWh if the plant uses imported LNG where gas price was set at $7.2625 per mmbtu with plant factor at 84 per cent.

Addressing the contract signing ceremony at Biduyt Bhaban in the city today, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said the government will gradually replace inefficient power plants with the installation of new base-load large power plants.

The contract signing ceremony was also addressed by US Ambassador Earl R Miller, SDG chief coordinator AbulKalam Azad, power secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus, energy secretary, National Board of Revenue (NBR) chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, BPDB chairman Khaled Mahmood and Petrobangla chairman Ruhul Amin.