India-owned BHEL gets $1.5 billion order to build Rampal Power Plant

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited has secured the contract to build the Rampal Power Plant.

The state-owned Indian company announced it got the $1.5 billion export order for the 1,320 MW thermal power station in a notice posted on its website on Tuesday.

BHEL won its biggest order following stiff competition in international bidding for the coal-fired power plant, a joint initiative of India's state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation and Bangladesh Power Development Board, the notice said.

BHEL’s share price rose by two percent to Rs 180.45 after it announced that it got the order from Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company (BIFPCL), reported the BloombergQuint.

The proposal for the coal-fired plant has been heavily criticised by environmental activists and left-leaning parties for the threat it posed to the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest.

“In order to meet stringent environmental norms, BHEL shall also install a state-of-the-art FGD plant and Dry bottom ash handling system,” the notice said.

Flue-gas desulfurisation or FGD refers to technology that removes sulfur dioxide from exhaust of power plants that use fossil fuel. Removal of ash, the residue from combustion of coal, is critical to environmental safety.

The company would work on design, engineering, manufacturing, supply, construction, erection, testing and commissioning of two 660 MW thermal sets “with ultra-supercritical parameters on turnkey basis", the post added.

It would also to set up a jetty and a river-water intake system.

Before this, BHEL built power plants in Narayanganj’s Siddhirganj and Sirajganj’s Baghabari.

The Export-Import Bank of India or Exim Bank will provide $1.6 billion of the $2 billion Maitree Power Project to be built in Bagerhat’s Rampal, according to an agreement signed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s much-hyped visit to New Delhi earlier this month.

National Thermal Power Corporation and Bangladesh Power Development Board will each invest 15 percent, while EXIM Bank will finance the rest 70 percent, for which Bangladesh will be the bank guarantor.

BIFPCL officials were not available for comment on the BEHL getting the export order.