Coal or LNG for Sampur power plant, SL yet to confirm: India
Despite environmental concerns raised by the Sri Lanka Government on the proposed Sampur coal power plant, Sri Lanka is yet to officially inform India whether it is for coal or Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) replacing the project completely, a senior Indian official said.
India's Ministry of Power, Secretary, P.K. Pujari said Sri Lanka has to decide, after addressing local agitation against the project on environmental grounds, after which India will extend its fullest cooperation to see the project materialise.
“There have been indications recently from the Sri Lanka side to switch the power plant from coal to a LNG based plant, but we haven’t got any official response to date,” said NTPC Ltd Chairman-Managing Director, Gurdeep Singh, the joint venture partner of the project.
He said that a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prepared by the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) of Sri Lanka cleared the project in February this year, while putting forward some “specific conditions” to comply with.
“We will continue to work with our local partners in Sri Lanka to ensure that all these "specific conditions" are complied with, and the environmental concerns of the local communities too addressed,” he said.
According to the joint venture agreement signed in 2011 with the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), NTPC Ltd agreed on 50% promoters equity to set up two 250-MW coal based power project in the Trincomalee region.
Mr. Singh also stressed that a decision to switch to an LNG based plant would not be feasible for a country like Sri Lanka, where the price of gas in the world market is volatile and may cause further delay of up to 10 years to complete the project.
“This is a joint venture, which, as of now, stands out clearly that coal power plant technology is commercially viable and durable up to the next 25 years. More importantly, much groundwork has already been done for the coal plant at present,” he said.
Referring to the local public protests and agitations in the Eastern Province against the project as being the agendas of some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with vested interests, he said India too, faced the same issue in many parts in the past, when setting up coal plants, but were able to implement them through transparency and clearance from the relevant government institutes.
However, Sri Lanka's diplomatic sources said that, when President Maithripala Sirisena visited India in May, he took up the coal power plant issue with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and requested to switch to an LNG based plant.
India's Ministry of Power, Secretary, P.K. Pujari said Sri Lanka has to decide, after addressing local agitation against the project on environmental grounds, after which India will extend its fullest cooperation to see the project materialise.