Fly ash, a major environmental and health hazard at the Puttalam Coal Power Plant is to be disposed of through its sale to the cement and asbestos industry.
Cabinet approval was granted this week to sell the ash to companies chosen by the Department of Public Finance appointed TEC and SCAPC committees.
The Power Plant comprises of three units of 300 MW for power generation with a total coal requirement of 2.4 million metric tons annually.
Each unit generates up to 850,00 MT of ash per year and together these three units manage to discharge 255,000 metric tons per year.
Tenders called for by the Ceylon Electricity Board to dispose of the fly ash resulted in 12 bids being put forward, according to the Cabinet Paper submitted on the proposal. The bids were for both Quality 1 as well as Quality 2 ash.
The committees have thus chosen the companies of; High-Tech Cement, Ceylon and Foreign Traders PLC, Sri Ramco Roofing Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, Tokyo Cement Company Lanka PLC, SIAM city cement Lanka Limited and Tokyo Super Cement Pvt Ltd for Quality 1 ash at unit prices varying from Rs.1200-1370 per ton. Each company will sign an agreement for five years with the CEB for the ash.
Quality 2 ash being sold at Rs.200 per ton will be sold to Tokyo Super Cement and Tokyo Eastern Cement Company.
Tokyo Cement is already a major customer of fly ash and has an existing laboratory opened near the Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant and buys 43 percent of fly ash production from Lakvijaya.