Bangladesh urged to tap coal before gas runs out

Experts from home and abroad asked Bangladesh on Wednesday to mine its huge coal reserves before its fast depleting natural gas reserves run out.

They however urged the country to tap the resource carefully to avoid human tragedies associated with coal mining.
The heavily populated Asian country faces a serious energy crisis, with lack of gas to produce electricity. The crisis is set to worsen by 2011 when its gas reserves could run out and attention is increasingly turning to its vast coal resorce.

It has already suffered a setback trying to mine coal in the northern Phulbari area, where Britain’s GCM Resources Plc (GCM.L: Quote, Profile, Research) had to halt activities two years ago after violent protests by local residents and environmentalists, saying the project would displace at least 40,000 villagers and severely damage the environment.

“Bangladesh needs to sustain a 7 percent economic growth to halve its poverty by the next eight years, and to meet these challenges we must have energy security,” Tamim said.

Jalal Ahmed, chairman of the state-run Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation, also said the country needed to develop coalfields in an accelerated manner.

Reuters