Is imported fuel a sustainable option?

Imagine a peaceful island of the fishermen becoming a hub of power generating projects. Imagine a nuclear power plant set up on the bank of a river and big ships transporting coal and LNG, which will be compressed into fuel to be used in the national power grid.

Well, it is not mere imagination, it is a snapshot from Bangladesh's probable future in the power sector.

Bangladesh's energy sector is set for fast and robust expansion, but most of the fuel, including coal, LNG, inter-country electricity and nuclear power, will be imported. As per government data, they are working to produce 21000 MW power by 2020, 32000 MW by 2030 and 54000 MW by 2040 (PSMP 2016).

However, the dependency on imported fuel is a matter of grave concern. In 2010, the country's dependency on natural gas was 90 per cent, but in 2030 more than 90 per cent of this dependency will be on imported fuel.

It is clear that the government has opted to rely on imported fuel in the forseeable future, but that will hit the country's economy hard. By the end of the next year, 1 billion cubic feet LNG will be imported every day, which will cost Tk 240 billion (the Padma Bridge is being constructed at an expense of Tk 250 billion. And the government has a plan to increase the daily LNG import by a few times. The power plants, on the other hand, will be run on coal. The excessive use of high-priced LNG and coal will result in price hike of electricity and industrial commercial goods.

Now, is this a sustainable plan? Can the prices be contained? Will the masses be able to cope with the price hike? It is a matter of grave concern that the power price has already been hiked twice in the last one year, even before one cubic feet LNG hitting the country. Experts say LNG can be a short-term solution, but in the long run it will be very costly. The recent price hike in the international market bears testimony to their claims.

Local scientists say there is an alternative and that is depending on natural gas. They believe discovery of a new gas field does not get the publicity it deserves, whereas all the time we are told that the natural gas reserves will soon run out. Bangladesh's record of searching for a new gasfield is shambolic. In the last 10 years,  no new gas field has been explored.

The Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration & Production Company Limited (BAPEX) has recently undertaken a project to look for gas in the mainland, success of which will depend on the implementation of the latest technologies.

Bangladesh successfully resolved the maritime disputes with neighbouring Myanmar and India in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Establishing the absolute rights on 18,000 square kilometres in the sea is definitely a great achievement for the country. The victory was enormous, especially, when the government was so hopeful about the potential of the blue economy. It is not understandable despite all this as to why Bangladesh failed to deploy its full efforts to extract oil and gas from the sea even after a few years of the achievement.

Petrobanla launched a seismic survey to attain preliminary information that could help Bangladesh appoint foreign firms in this regard. Another initiative was granted that an experts' committee would make a list of eligible service companies though scrutiny. But, the process came to a halt due to an unknown reason even after selecting the eligible companies. This is a perfect example how bureaucratic tangles can kill a project with huge potential.

On the other hand, Myanmar started gas exploration in the sea after the border settlement of 2012. Several large gas fields have been discovered due to the vast exploration by deploying many international petroleum companies across the Rakhine sea line and one of those gas fields is located between Bangladesh and Myanmar. According to geologists, the regions of Rakhine and Bangladesh's Teknaf-St Martins sea lines are included in the same basin and thus are indivisible.

Therefore, the sources of oil and gas in these two regions are same. In fact, geologists had earlier claimed the south-eastern part of Bangladesh sea line is most likely to be enriched with natural resources. The evidence of gas in the Myanmar region is a proof of that claim.

Despite the possibility of discovering gas in potential areas like this, long-term plans of importing LNG to meet the demand is not a prudent idea for Bangladesh.

The use of coal in power production is set for a big increase in the near future. The only coal-fired 500MW power plant use around 1 million tonnes of coal every year. When the plants in Maheshkhali, Patuakhali, Cox's Bazar and other areas start operating (9000 MW), it will jump to 30 million tonnes. And this huge amount of coal will be imported, menaing the will have to speand a lot to implement the full project, which includes transportation of the coal as well.

There are coal in four places in northern Bangladesh, but it is extracted only in Barapukuria. If coal is extracted from other pits in the country, it will not be necessary to import so much. There have not been much efforts to extract coal from the country's as well. Open pit coal mining is not feasible from an environmental perspective.

Bangladesh has to assess all possible options to contain its heavy reliance on imported coal to meet its fuel demand.

*This article, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten in English by Quamrul Hassan.