Bangladesh firm to produce 1000 MW electricity with Tata

DHAKA May 16 (Reuters) - Bangladesh's Nitol-Niloy Group said on Sunday it plans to build a $1 billion, 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant in a venture with India's Tata group.

The venture, designed to ease nagging power shortages, will be listed, with 70 percent of stock available through an initial public offering. Nitol-Niloy and Tata would own the remaining shares equally.

More than 80 percent of Bangladesh's electricity is produced from natural gas. But the country daily faces shortages of up to 2,000 MW of electricity and more than 300 million cubic feet of gas.

Abdul Matlub Ahmed, chairman of Nitol-Niloy Group, said a feasibility study for the new plant would be completed by the end of June and construction in the port of Chittagong would start quickly.

Nitol-Niloy Group is the business partner of Tata in Bangladesh and has operations in transport, aviation, financial institutions, manufacturing and real estate. (Reporting by Serajul Islam Quadir; Editing by Anis Ahmed and David Cowell)

($1=69.28 taka)