The Phulbari Project

Despite the countries huge coal reserves only one token coal mine was ever sanctioned in Bangladesh. The underground coal mine at Barapukuria along with its’ associated power stations are state owned and have a management and production contract with the Chinese consortium CMC-XMC. Both the mine and the power stations are on their knees. The power stations are often out of action due to malfunctions, lack of spare parts or the skills required to repair them. One unit has never been operational. Many experts, prior to implementation, advised against underground mining as they considered the coal seams were not deep enough to prevent land subsidence and collapse. 

 

The Barapukuria underground coal mine experienced a significant flooding incident during its development phase on 5 April 1998. At that time, a sudden high volume inrush of water flooded the underground workings, forcing the mine to be inundated and halting underground construction for several months while high-capacity pumps were brought in to remove the water. No further underground work could proceed immediately after that accident until it was managed with pumped dewatering and redesign of the mine plan that severely reduced the area of mining. 

This flooding occurred well before commercial coal production began in September 2005, and was part of the early development setbacks the project faced, seen by some as a consequence of unreliable feasibility studies and hasty mine planning and a cautionary tale for any future underground mines.

 

Within the first five years of operation 4sq kms of the land around the mine had subsided, over 81 homes in 5 villages were damaged, and farming land rendered unusable. Throughout its’ operational life it has been beset with labour disputes, allegations of corruption, fatal accidents, gas leakages, flooding and roof cave ins.

 

The existing contract and operational approval with the previous government is set to expire in August 2027, with the near exhaustion of the existing mineable underground seams, in June 2023 the operators approached the then government for permission to conduct feasibility studies for open pit mining on the site, the applicants were refused the approval.

 

There has been no indication from the Interim Government that such a request was made to them or subsequently approved. There has been no indication elsewhere of any commissioning or progression of these required studies. The estimated time to conduct such feasibility studies is a minimum of 3 years. Open pit mining of Barapukuria would also need more drilling and studies (including environmental and social impact) feeding into any feasibility study.

 

Barapukuria is a much smaller basin than Phulbari and as such poses difficulty in that there's not a lot of "mine working room" meaning they'd need to place almost all the overburden material, that has to be excavated to reach coal, in permanently stacked dumps on the surface, allowing little opportunity to do any backfilling. There's also the impact of past underground mining at Barapukuria to contend with.

 

The most expensive issue for both the Phulbari and Barapukuria deposits would be digging the initial hole to reach first coal. On all fronts it’s more sensible to go forward from Phulbari, its initial excavation on the boundary of the two deposits, utilising the existing plant, skills, manpower and infrastructure, would also allow mining back into Barapukuria and ultimately backfilling of Barapukuria after coal extraction.

 

In summary mining Barapukuria as open pit, as a standalone project would neither be practical or economically viable. It would be 2030 at the earliest before any approval was given and even if it was forthcoming it would be another 3 years before first coal was reached.

 

The Phulbari and Barapukuria fields are an extension of each other, they are one giant field. Phulbari's feasibility study is done and dusted and the pathway to reach first coal is already established with the EPC Contract with Asia Energy’s development partner, Power China. It's the fastest trajectory to sustainable large annual coal production. 

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