As the outstanding dues of Adani Power with Bangladesh swell up to almost $1 billion, the coal-to-power conglomerate could start curtailing electricity supply from its Godda (Jhankhand) plant to India’s neighbour beginning next week. However, a complete shutdown of the supply looks unlikely.
Sources said the political, financial and economic crisis in Bangladesh is having a severe impact on its power situation as the country is not able to source US dollars to pay for electricity that it is importing from India.
The Ahmedabad-based conglomerate had, in September 2024, informed Bangladesh that it will stop supplying electricity if payments critical to procure coal for running the Godda plant are not made.
Bangladesh would need to pay roughly $200-250 million—the amount required to import coal so that the Godda plant can run at optimum capacity.
At present, Bangladesh is being supplied with around 730-750 MW of power from the total 1,496 MW. As on November 3, Bangladesh was provided around 730 MW from the 1600 MW Godda ultra-supercritical thermal power plant.
A top government official said that the issue is between the company (Adani Power) and Bangladesh. However, he emphasised that a complete shutdown “looks far fetched”.
“Both parties want to resolve the issue. The payment problem is with US dollars, which Bangladesh is not able to procure. But the government there is working on solutions,” the official added.
Rising dues
Sources said the total outstanding dues have swelled to almost $1 billion. Bangladesh already owes around $846 million to Adani Power. The issue of a $170-million Letter of Credit (LoC) by Bangladesh Krishi Bank is also facing problems as it does not meet the terms of the power purchase agreement (PPA).
On Sunday (November 3, 2024), Bangladesh Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam in a media interaction said that they have not received any “correspondence” from Adani Power on curtailing power supply.
He stressed that the efforts are on to expedite payments to Adani Power. Alam said that $97 million was paid to Adani in October, which is double of what was paid in September 2024.
Adani Power’s Godda plant accounts for roughly 10 per cent of power consumed by Bangladesh. The issue becomes critical as almost 20-25 per cent of the power consumed by the domestic industry in Bangladesh is supplied by Adani.