Reliance Power to set up $3 billion gas-based plant in Bangladesh

Reliance Power said on Saturday that it will set up a 2 million tonnes per annum floating natural gas (LNG) import terminal and a 3,000 megawatt power plant in Bangladesh.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed by Reliance Power "during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Dhaka", on his two-day official tour to the country, the company said in a stock exchange filing here.

Reliance Power will use the equipment it had contracted for its Samalkot project in Andhra Pradesh for setting up the power plant in Bangladesh in three years from the date of signing the power purchase agreement (PPA).

The company was earlier implementing a 2,400 MW gas-based power project at Samalkot in Andhra Pradesh, which has got stalled owing to lack of supplies of allocated gas from Reliance Industries' KG-D6 block.

The equipment will be under appropriate warranties from General Electric (GE), USA and the other global suppliers.

"Reliance is proposing to utilize these brand new equipment from Samalkot project, including advanced class 9FA machines supplied by GE, for the proposed project at Bangladesh, under appropriate warranties from GE and the other equipment suppliers. This will help set up the project on a fast-track basis," the statement said.

The equipment for the project has been procured and is ready with the company, it added.

Reliance Power will invest $3 billion in an integrated facility comprising a 3,000 MW LNG-based combined cycle power plant and an LNG terminal with a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), making it the largest foreign investment in Bangladesh, it said.

The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will provide land for the project, the statement added.

The FSRU terminal shall be set up at Maheshkhali Island in Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh.

"The project can be set up quickly and can power the country's rising demand for electricity and will provide clean and green power," the statement said.

The project is in line with Bangladesh's master plan of 2010 for meeting the country's growing power demands as well as to supplement domestic gas reserves in the country.