Bangladesh is looking forward to generating power from the Roopur nuclear power plant next year, but that is unlikely to be added to the national grid before 2025 because of delays in the construction of transmission lines, officials said.

The country was expecting to receive nuclear fuel from Russia next month while continuing to work on making an alternative payment arrangement after the US ban on the latter broke the old transaction system.

Science and Technology minister Yeafesh Osman told New Age on Tuesday that they were waiting eagerly to receive nuclear fuel from Moscow next month amid work on the payment issue.

The fuel to be burned in the country’s first nuclear power plant, which is being built with a loan of around $12 billion from Russia at Roopur in Ishwardi, northwest of the capital Dhaka.

Calling the upcoming event a remarkable one, the minister said that the issue of payment through alternative arrangements was losing importance.

‘The Russians are not making queries about the matter now,’ he said, adding that they were also least bothered.

Officials of the Science and Technology ministry and economic relations division said that an alternative payment arrangement for clearing dues to Russia had been in process.

The US ban on more than 100 Russian entities since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 has made it imperative for Dhaka to find an alternative payment arrangement to avoid any backlash from the US, said the officials.

The US is the single biggest market for the country’s readymade garments, accounting for almost 30 per cent of export earnings of $46.99 billion from the sector in FY23.

In December, Dhaka denied a Russian ship permission to unload its cargo destined for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant as the ship was on the list of those Russian ships sanctioned by the US.

The ship then tried to dock at an Indian port to send the cargo by road but failed.

International media reported that the sanctioned ship departed on January 19 after being anchored off the coast of India since January 6.

The cargo was, however, eventually sent by other ships to Bangladesh.

The payment obligation of Dhaka to Moscow is around $330 million, incurred from a loan of $500 million taken in 2013 for a detailed survey and preparatory works on the nuclear power plant project.

The country had been making repayments since 2018 until Belgium-based SWIFT, a leading global banking transaction-facilitating system, excluded seven Russian banks from its services in March 2022.

It made Bangladesh unable to maintain banking transactions with Russia.

The war between Russia and Ukraine prompted SWIFT to exclude VTB Bank, Bank Otkritie, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, Rossiya Bank, Sovcombank, and the Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs, also known as VEB, from its system.

Dhaka used to maintain transactions with Moscow through VEB.

Until June, around 60 per cent of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project had been implemented, according to the monthly update of the Implementation, Monitoring, and Evaluation Division.

The implementation rate was 51.50 per cent in June 2022.

Yeafesh Osman said that they were also looking forward to generating 1,200 megawatts of power from the first reactor in the next year and the other one for the same amount of electricity in 2025.

Answering the question of when they will be able to provide power from the much-vaunted power plant to the national grid, the science and technology minister said it was beyond his jurisdiction.

He said that the power transmission lines had been constructed by the power division.

Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, under the power division, has been constructing 400 KV and 230 KV River Crossing Transmission Lines for the Power Evacuation of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant on the Jamuna and Padma Rivers since July 2022 at a cost of Tk 6,056.30 crore.

Only 5 per cent physical progress of the project has been made in one year, while the deadline for the project will expire in 2025, according to the PGCB project update.

PGCB has also been implementing the Infrastructure Development for Power Evacuation Facilities of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant at a cost of Tk 10,981.74 crore since April 2018.

Around 63.00 per cent of the project has been completed.

The PGCB is hopeful of completing the remaining 37 per cent by the deadline expiring in December, said QM Safiqul Islam, the project director.

He, however, said that power transmission from the nuclear plant would not be started unless the river crossing lines were completed—the first one in December 2024 and the second one in September 2025.

While delays in the construction of transmission lines will keep the power-hungry nation waiting to get the benefits of the power plant, the country will, however, face the pressure of repaying its debt to Russia for the plant.

In 2016, Dhaka signed an agreement with Moscow on $11.38 billion in loans with a four per cent interest rate, with the repayment of the credit maturing in March 2027 with the 10-year grace period ending.

The project officials calculated that the first installment would be around $560 million.

Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur said the annual debt obligation was poised to be doubled in the next year following the maturity of many foreign loans with short grace periods.

He also said the government should be cautious in dealing with foreign loans to avoid debt distress.

The government has been facing a shortage of dollars due to high import payments against paltry growth in exports and remittances, the two major sources of foreign currency, he added.

The country’s foreign exchange reserves tumbled to $20 billion from $48 billion in August 2021, while it was forced to take a loan programme for $4.7 billion by 2026 from the International Monetary Fund.