Adani halves power supply to Bangladesh over $846 million in outstanding bills: Report  

Adani Power Jharkhand Limited (APJL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Power, has stopped half of its power supply to Bangladesh due to outstanding bills of $846 million, as per reports in the local media.  

Data from Power Grid Bangladesh PLC showed the Adani plant reduced supply on October 31 night. The 1,496-megawatt-plant is now producing around 700MW from a single unit, impacting the national production. Bangladesh reported a shortfall of more than 1,600MW last night, The Daily Star newspaper reported. 

The company had earlier requested Bangladesh power secretary to direct the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) to clear its outstanding dues by October 30.  

The company in a letter, dated October 27, said that if the bills are not paid, it shall be constrained to take remedial action under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) by suspending the power supply on October 31.  

APJL said that the PDB has neither provided a letter of credit (LC) for an amount of $170.03 million from Bangladesh Krishi Bank nor cleared the outstanding amount of $846 million.  

“We have been facing tremendous difficulties in managing working capital for making payment to coal suppliers and operations and maintenance contractors on account of huge outstanding payments from the PDB and the non-availability of LC, as well as our Lenders having withdrawn the working capital support,” the letter added. 

The report quoted a PDB official saying they had earlier cleared a portion of previous dues, but since July, Adani has been charging more. The official said the PDB has been paying around $18 million weekly, while the charge is more than $22 million.  

“This is why the due payments increased again,” he said, adding that they had submitted last week’s payment to Krishi Bank as well, but due to a dollar shortage, the bank failed to open a letter of credit against the payment.  

After the tenure of the one-year supplementary deal, Adani has again started charging as per the PPA, the report said.  

According to the PPA, coal prices are calculated based on the average price of two coal indices -- the Indonesian coal index and the Australian Newcastle index -- which increases the prices.  

Adani said that during the period of suspension of supply, the company reserves its right to recover capacity payments under Section 13.2(1) of the PPA. Adani has been pressing the Bangladesh interim government led by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus to clear dues since they took charge after the ouster of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Gautam Adani, chairman of Adani Group, had also wrote to Chief Adviser Yunus about clearing the dues. 

(With inputs from PTI)