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Bangladesh Promises Over $173m to Adani to Ensure Continuous Power Supply

Rtv News

  08 Nov 2024, 16:00
Photo: Collected

The Bangladesh government has decided to clear dues of Adani Power through the issuance of a new Letter of Credit (LC) worth $173 million, reports Economic Times, quoting government sources.

"This is the third LC that the Bangladesh Power Development Board has provided Adani Power. Bangladesh Krishi Bank has given the LC and ICICI Bank is its counterpart in India. The earlier LCs were not in line with the power purchase agreement," shared an official close to the matter, reported Economic Times.

Adani Power, through its Godda plant in Jharkhand, supplies nearly 1,600 megawatts (MW) of electricity to Bangladesh, with each of its two units producing around 800 MW. The energy giant has now added further pressure on the BPDB, demanding an additional $15-20 million to restart one of the 800 MW units, which was shut down last week.

"Adani Power has additionally demanded a payment of $15-20 million from BPDB failing which the company will not restart the first unit of 800 MW which it shut down last week," noted an industry insider.

The company meets about 10 percent of Bangladesh's electricity demand. In 2015, Adani signed a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with BPDB.

An industry official told the Economic Times that BPDB is slowly making payments due to the loan from the IMF.

However, between July and October alone, Adani Power’s dues surged to around $400 million, with Bangladesh managing to settle less than half of this amount. Monthly payments to Adani range between $95-97 million, but Bangladesh’s dwindling foreign currency reserves, coupled with political upheaval and the ousting of the Sheikh Hasina government in August, have hampered its ability to meet these obligations.

In September, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani asked Bangladesh's chief adviser Muhammad Yunus to intervene in the speedy payment of the power producer's nearly $850 million in arrears.

The company once again wrote to BPDB to clear the dues by October 30, threatening to cut off the power supply if the bill is not paid by October. In that letter, the company said that if the bill is not paid, the electricity supply will be stopped from October 31 under the PPA.


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