The Feasibility Study was formally launched by the state minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, the Honourable AKM Mosharraf Hossain, at the Asia Energy offices in Dhaka at the end of July.

The Phulbari Energy Project in north-west Bangladesh contains a coal basin with over 400Mt of resources, of which a current estimated in-situ coal resource is calculated according to the JORC Code of 370Mt. Asia Energy has development agreements in place with the government of Bangladesh for the development and exploitation of this major asset.

The company plans to establish a 15Mt per annum coal mine at Phulbari to sell coal to the local and export markets. The proposed scale of the mine was recently increased from 9Mtpa and the feasibility programme accelerated with the aim of completing the key technical aspects within twelve months rather than two years.

The company also intends to participate in the local development of a power station complex with a generating capacity of up to 2,500 MW for the next 40 years.

Asia Energy said with the strong backing from the government, it believes Phulbari might be brought into production earlier than the currently scheduled 2009.

“The Government support for this project is extremely encouraging and reflects the ongoing belief in the potential benefits that the Phulbari project can deliver for Bangladesh. The Government’s backing has facilitated our development and we are dedicated to returning this support through developing a world class asset in Bangladesh,” David Lenigas, joint managing director of Asia Energy said.

Asia Energy has issued 1.77 million options primarily to key personnel responsible for the completion of the Feasibility Study.