Huge Omani coal imports for Payra plant not true
Plant not expected to resume operations before 25 Jun
Payra power plant authorities have denied social media claims that over 8.5 million tonnes of Omani coal are headed for Bangladesh to help restart the plant, clarifying that a much smaller amount is due to arrive before 25 June from Indonesia.
The plant is expected to come back online after 25 June with the Indonesian shipment.
The last unit of the 1,320MW thermal power plant shut down Monday as coal stocks were exhausted in trying to meet surging power demand amid the ongoing severe heat wave.
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However, on Tuesday morning hopes arose that the plant would be restarted soon with new Omani coal shipments, thanks to mostly ruling party-linked social media posts later dubbed by authorities as "rumours."
"We are importing coal from Indonesia which is expected to arrive by 25 June. There is no way to import coal from Oman," said Shah Abdul Moula, plant manager at Bangladesh-China Power Company (Pvt) Limited, the owner and operating company of the Payra power plant.
"How can we import 8.59 million tonnes of coal? Where is the money?," he asked rhetorically, when contacted by TBS.
The two units of Payra plant require around 3.5 million tonnes of coal annually. The country's total five coal-fired power plants at present require about four million tonnes of coal to operate – with all of them except Payra operating at partial capacity.
"Digital Bangladesh" a Bengali-language Facebook account with 22 thousand followers published a post at 6am Tuesday claiming coal shipments are arriving from Oman.
The facebook account of Khilgaon Thana Awami League, with eight thousand followers, published a similar post at about the same time.
"Alhamdullilah! A total of 77 ships loaded with 8.592895 million tonnes of coal heading towards Bangladesh," the post read receiving over 122 'Likes' and 21 'Shares'.
The same information with different images and clips of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina were spread in hundreds of other facebook accounts.
Most of the posts were published by the facebook accounts and pages run by the ruling party's supporters and activists.
