Coal not for export

Besides coal, the estimates of remaining recoverable reserves of natural gas in Bangladesh are in the range of 11-16 TCF.

The hydropower potential of the country is negligible. Bangladesh can at best produce 755 megawatt of electricity using its hydropower. Country's present installed hydropower capacity is 444 megawatt.

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The picture of our coal and natural gas reserves and our hydropower potentials shows that our energy resources are very limited.

Tata has proposed to invest to the tune of US dollar 2.5 billion in steel, fertilizer and power projects in Bangladesh. (We should not go for any more fertilizer projects, which will use natural gas as the raw material.) According to Tata, Bangladesh can earn US $1 billion a year from Tata's proposed projects. We hope that from those projects, Tata will also be able to make decent profit, decent enough to encourage them to invest in a foreign country.

The Tata representatives have told that Bangladesh could save around 1.5 TCF of gas if Tata establishes a coal-based power station instead of a gas-based one. It is nice to know that, as we need to save our gas as much as possible.

Tata officials have expressed their interest to use coal from Barapukuria and the Phulbari coalmines for a power plant. Tata has also proposed the export of coal to India from Bangladesh, which will be carried by the wagons used for bringing raw materials for their steel plant in Chittagong. Under the backdrop of our scanty energy resources, we have strong reservation to this proposal of exporting coal from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, with its 138 million population, and being on the brink of an industrial revolution, cannot think of exporting coal from its scanty energy resources.

Four-fifth of the people of Bangladesh still do not have access to electricity. The country needs 17,500 megawatt of installed power to attain the goal of electricity for all; at present the country can produce at best 4,000 megawatt.

The current annual oil import of Bangladesh varies from 3.5 to 3.7 million tonnes to meet some of its energy needs.

Annual GDP growth rate of Bangladesh for the last one decade has been 4.55 percent on average, not an encouraging figure. Last year growth rate was around 5.5 percent. At present our economy is at a stage of taking off, and there is every possibility that the country will achieve, very soon, a higher annual GDP growth rate, which may even surpass a rate of seven percent. Confrontational politics at home will not be able to hinder our country's economic progress for long.

We will be in need of our scanty natural resources to develop our own industrial sector, our own economy. We cannot indulge in the luxury of exporting our energy resources, when we ourselves are in dire need of every bit of that. No doubt, the domestic coal deposits will be playing an important role in meeting energy needs of the country. Coal will primarily be used in power generation.

If we had, in our country, the energy resources in abundance, we would not have any reservation in exporting them. What is the use of keeping natural resources buried under the ground?

Enormous pressure was put on Bangladesh to make it agree to export its natural gas. Somehow, we have been able to avert that pressure, it seems. We hope no quarter, this time, will put pressure to make us export our coal. We hope our policy makers will not opt for any quick bucks from exporting any of our limited energy resources.

It is nice to know that a US company has come up with the proposal of exploring coal mine and set up four power generation plants, 250 MW each, at different places of the country including Jamalganj; that means the company thinks using the coal of Jamalganj is economically viable.

Faruque Hasan is a freelance writer.