How Foreign Powers Are a Concern for Energy Security for Bangladesh
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Bangladesh's next major electricity problem may not begin inside a power plant. It could begin with a sanctions decision in Washington, a payment problem involving Moscow, a disruption in cross-border electricity from India, a financing decision in Tokyo or complications involving a Chinese-backed project.
That possibility exists because Bangladesh has internationalized a large part of its future power system.
China is deeply involved at Payra. India is connected through Rampal and the Godda power purchase agreement. Russia is building and supplying Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant. Japan has financed and equipped Matarbari.
These partnerships helped Bangladesh build infrastructure that would have been difficult to finance and execute alone. But they also introduce a different form of risk. Energy security is becoming partly dependent on foreign-policy stability.
Four Countries Are Embedded in Four Major Power Blocks
The relationships are not identical. Japan does not control Matarbari in the same way that a joint-venture partner holds equity in a company. Adani is a private Indian company, while Rampal involves an Indian state-owned enterprise.
Still, finance, technology, ownership, fuel, long-term contracts and technical support connect major parts of Bangladesh's electricity system to foreign counterparties.
This should not be interpreted as foreign control over Bangladesh's entire power sector.
It is better understood as geopolitical concentration risk: several strategically important assets depend on long-term relationships with a small group of foreign states, state-owned companies and multinational corporations.
China Is Building More Than One Power Plant
The 1,320 MW Payra plant was developed through Bangladesh-China Power Company Limited, a 50:50 joint venture between Bangladesh's North-West Power Generation Company and China's state-owned China National Machinery Import & Export Corporation.
Chinese companies also supplied the EPC work and Chinese export-credit financing supported the project. By February 2024, NWPGCL continued to list another 1,320 MW Payra Phase II project among its development projects.
China's involvement also extends beyond Payra. Chinese companies SEPCOIII and HTG participated with Bangladesh's S Alam Group in the 1,320 MW SS Power project at Banshkhali.
Payra does not depend on China for its coal simply because it is a Bangladesh-China project.
Its coal has been imported from Indonesia. When Payra ran out of coal in 2023, vessels later arrived from Indonesia to restart production. The Chinese partner CMC was involved in financing coal purchases, but the physical fuel did not originate primarily from China.
China's leverage is therefore better understood through equity, financing, construction and project relationships, rather than a Chinese monopoly over the plant's fuel.
India Has the Most Visible Cross-Border Electricity Connection
India's position is different because part of Bangladesh's electricity physically originates across the border.
Rampal's Maitree Super Thermal Power Project is owned through Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company, a 50:50 joint venture between BPDB and India's state-owned NTPC. Its second 660 MW unit was declared commercially operational in March 2024, bringing the project to its full 1,320 MW capacity.
Then there is Godda. Adani's plant in Jharkhand can supply 1,496 MW exclusively to Bangladesh under a 25-year PPA signed with BPDB. Unlike Rampal, the power station itself sits outside Bangladesh and electricity reaches the country through a dedicated transmission connection.
That creates a form of cross-border offtake dependency. A commercial disagreement does not automatically become a diplomatic dispute. Nor does a political disagreement automatically stop electricity.
But when generation occurs in another jurisdiction, the relationship involves more than ordinary fuel imports. Contract enforcement, regulation, transmission and bilateral relations can all become relevant to continuity of supply.
Russia Creates a Much Longer Technology Relationship
Rooppur creates another kind of dependency. The two Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors will provide 2,400 MW of nuclear capacity. Russia agreed to finance roughly 90% of the project's estimated $12.65 billion construction cost.
Rosatom companies provide the reactor technology, construction services and nuclear fuel. A fuel-supply agreement requires Bangladesh to procure Russian TVEL fuel for the operating lifetime of the plant. Russia can also provide long-term maintenance, repairs, equipment, spare parts and technical assistance.
This is a form of technology lock-in that is normal in nuclear power. Nuclear plants are highly specialized systems. Once a country selects a reactor technology, changing the technical ecosystem around that reactor is much harder than changing the supplier of a conventional commodity.
And Bangladesh has already experienced what geopolitics can do to this relationship.
Rooppur Has Already Been Caught Between Russia and the United States
In late 2022, a Russian vessel carrying equipment for Rooppur was due to enter Bangladesh. The United States informed Dhaka that the ship was actually the sanctioned Russian vessel Sparta III operating under another name. Bangladesh subsequently refused to allow it to unload at Mongla.
The vessel attempted to reroute the equipment through India's Haldia port but eventually returned without unloading the cargo.
Then came the payment related problem. Western sanctions after Russia's invasion of Ukraine complicated Bangladesh's ability to make dollar payments associated with Rooppur. Dhaka and Moscow explored settling some obligations in Chinese yuan through a Chinese bank.
That solution itself became complicated when the United States sanctioned a Russian entity connected to the project. Bangladesh Bank officials reportedly examined whether processing the payment could expose Bangladesh to sanctions risk. This may be the clearest evidence for the central argument of this article.
Bangladesh did not have a dispute with Russia over electricity. Yet a Russia-US geopolitical conflict still affected the logistics and financial architecture of a Bangladeshi power project. Energy geopolitics does not require Bangladesh to be one of the countries in conflict.
Japan Shows That Domestic Policy Abroad Can Also Change Bangladesh's Plans
Japan's role at Matarbari is different again. The 1,200 MW project was developed with extensive Japanese ODA financing. Japanese companies Sumitomo, Toshiba and IHI were contracted for major construction, turbines, generators, boilers and related infrastructure.
The project is also connected to Matarbari's deep-sea-port development, giving Japan a role in infrastructure that extends beyond electricity generation. But Matarbari also provides an important example of policy spillover.
Japan had considered supporting another 1,200 MW coal phase at Matarbari. In June 2022, Tokyo announced that it would no longer proceed with ODA support for Phase II after Japan committed with other G7 countries to ending new direct government support for unabated international coal power.
Bangladesh subsequently dropped the second coal phase. There was no breakdown in Bangladesh-Japan relations. Japan continued financing Matarbari Phase I and supporting other Bangladeshi infrastructure.
The lesson is subtler: another country's climate, financing or foreign-policy priorities can influence which energy projects remain feasible in Bangladesh.
The United States Is Already the Fifth Player
It would be misleading to ask what happens if the United States eventually enters Bangladesh's energy sector.
Chevron operates Bibiyana, Jalalabad and Moulavi Bazar. By 2022, Chevron said its Bangladeshi operations were producing around 60% of the country's natural gas.
That is significant because natural gas remained Bangladesh's largest source of electricity generation.
U.S.-based Excelerate Energy also developed and operates the Moheshkhali Floating LNG terminal, with regasification capacity of up to 500 million cubic feet per day. In November 2023, Excelerate signed a 15-year agreement to supply Petrobangla with 0.85–1.0 million tonnes of LNG annually beginning in 2026.
Washington therefore affects Bangladesh's energy system in two separate ways. American companies participate directly in gas and LNG infrastructure. The U.S. financial and sanctions system can also affect Bangladesh's transactions with third countries, as the Rooppur case demonstrated.
More Countries Do Not Automatically Mean Less Dependency
At first glance, working simultaneously with China, India, Russia, Japan and the United States appears highly diversified.
In one sense, it is.
Bangladesh has avoided putting every large project under one foreign partner.
But supplier diversification and geopolitical resilience are not exactly the same thing.
Consider the exposure:
Not every scenario would stop a power plant. The mechanisms are different. That distinction is exactly why Bangladesh needs to think beyond installed capacity.
Energy Security Is Becoming Foreign Policy
Bangladesh's stated foreign-policy approach is based on maintaining relations with multiple powers rather than formally aligning with one side.
Its 2023 Indo-Pacific Outlook again emphasized the principle of “friendship towards all, malice toward none” and described stability in the Indo-Pacific as important for the country's development.
That approach becomes harder when infrastructure relationships deepen. A disagreement that once affected diplomacy or trade may increasingly touch electricity, gas, financing, nuclear fuel, ports or transmission.
This does not mean Bangladesh should avoid foreign investment. A developing country cannot realistically build every nuclear reactor, deep-sea port, LNG terminal or large power station using only domestic technology and capital. The challenge is to prevent foreign partnership from becoming single-point dependency.
Bangladesh Needs Geopolitical Redundancy, Not Isolation
The goal should not be energy isolation. It should be redundancy. Bangladesh needs multiple fuel suppliers, alternative payment channels, diversified electricity import arrangements, domestic technical capacity, adequate strategic fuel inventories and contracts that limit exposure to one foreign counterparty wherever practical.
Nuclear technology will naturally require long-term specialist relationships. Cross-border electricity can be economically useful. Foreign capital can lower infrastructure constraints.
But those advantages should be considered alongside counterparty risk, sanctions risk, currency-settlement risk, supply-chain risk and technology dependence.
Bangladesh's power sector is no longer purely an engineering system. It is becoming a geopolitical system.
China, India, Russia and Japan are already embedded in some of its most important power projects. The United States is deeply connected through natural gas, LNG and the international financial system. That means Bangladesh's future electricity security may depend on something power planners cannot measure in megawatts:
the country's ability to maintain workable relationships with competing global powers at the same time.
For a nation whose foreign policy depends on balancing relations with all sides, that may become one of the most difficult energy challenges of the next decade.
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