Sri Lankan wants fast completion of China funded coal power plant

Sri Lanka's government has requested faster completion of a Chinese funded 1.35 billion U.S. dollar coal power plant to push forward its development plan, a statement from the Power and Energy Ministry said here Thursday. The Norochcholai power plant is being built in three phases at a cost of 1.35 billion U.S. dollars, which is being funded through a loan from the Chinese government. It is the first coal powered electricity generating unit in Sri Lanka that began construction in 2006 and began operations in March 2010. Phase I of the project with the capacity of 300 MW was commissioned by President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Phase II with capacity of 2X300 MW is under implementation. Sri Lanka's Power and Energy Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi during an observation tour of the facility earlier this week requested the speedy completion of the project so that it could help meet the energy demands on country, the statement said. "The first 300 MW of Phase II was scheduled to be commissioned in October 2013 and the second 300 MW Phase II will be available from May 2014. We would like to see this take place as soon as possible so that Sri Lanka can move to low cost energy production, "she was quoted as saying in the statement. The phase I and phase II of the project has been funded by a soft loan of 891 million U.S. dollars provided by EXIM Bank of China. The first stage of this coal power station inaugurated by the president cost 455 million U.S. dollars, while the second stage is estimated to cost 891 million U.S. dollars. The Ministry of Power and Energy stated that the funding for this project was provided by the Chinese government on a long term low interest rate to the Sri Lankan government. The construction work is carried out by CMEC while the funding is provided by the EXIM Bank of the Republic of China. Since Sri Lanka ended a 30 year war in 2009, China emerged at the island's largest loan provider with 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in loans in 2009 and 821 million U.S. dollars in 2010. In 2011, the amount fell to 784.7 million U.S. dollars but China remains involved in almost all the large scale projects taking place, according to the Finance Ministry. Some of the biggest projects include the coal power plant on the north western shore as well as a host of other investments in the south of the country that are estimated to exceed 4 billion U. S. dollars, including a 1.2 billion dollar harbor.