The shutdown may last for about 25 days

Payra Thermal Power Plant was shut down completely on Monday due to a coal shortage.

Production at the biggest power plant in Bangladesh stopped for a temporary period around 12:10pm, confirmed an engineer of the power plant.

Over the past few days, there has been an ongoing discussion about the shutdown of the Payra power plant. 

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid had previously announced that the plant would be fully shut down after Monday. 

He also informed that the shutdown might last for about 25 days. 

The Payra thermal power plant has an outstanding bill of $300 million. The crisis erupted due to the Bangladesh Bank's unwillingness to release dollars on time.

Last month, the Chinese foreign trade regulator banned coal imports for the Payra power plant, pushing it into crisis. 

The Bangladesh Bank has since been proactive, but it has already been considerably delayed.

The plant will now be provided with $100 million out of the $300 million. This sum will keep it running for two more months.

Meanwhile, due to the fuel and coal crisis and severe heatwave, demand for electricity has gone up, leading to increased load-shedding across almost the entire country. 

Nasrul Hamid told journalists at the secretariat on Sunday that the load-shedding will continue for a few more days. Efforts are also being made to buy coal for the Payra power plant. 

However, he informed that it might take another 10-15 days to overcome this situation.

With Payra power plant completely shut down in this situation, there are fears that load-shedding will increase further.

The plant's first unit with 1,200MW generation capacity was shut down on May 25.