The government owes Bangladesh’s power plants Tk 52,300 crore. It adds Tk 3,500 to 4,000 crore in new dues every month. It pays back Tk 1,500 to 2,000 crore. The gap is not closing. It is widening by roughly Tk 2,000 crore every thirty days — and the seven power companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange sit directly in the path of that expanding hole.
Power Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood confirmed the figure in Parliament as of April 9. IPP plants running on gas and fuel oil are owed Tk 17,358 crore. Coal-based joint ventures and IPPs are owed Tk 15,453 crore. Petrobangla’s gas bills stand at Tk 11,634 crore. Imported electricity from India accounts for another Tk 3,892 crore. Bank loans to the sector have reached Tk 1.49 trillion.
These are not projections. These are confirmed obligations the government cannot meet. And on April 19 — two days ago — it raised diesel prices to Tk 115 per litre, petrol to Tk 135, and octane to Tk 140, adding 10 to 15 percent to the input costs of every fuel-dependent power plant in the country.
The question for investors is not whether the power sector is under stress. That is settled. The question is which listed companies absorb the stress and which break under it. The answer depends on three things most market commentary ignores.
The Payment Chain Is Broken at Every Link
Bangladesh’s power sector loses an estimated $1.5 billion annually. The structural cause is overcapacity — the country built too many plants under PPAs that guarantee capacity payments regardless of whether a single megawatt is dispatched. The government collects too little from consumers to cover those payments, and the gap compounds monthly.
For listed companies, this translates into receivables that grow but never convert to cash. Summit Power’s experience is the starkest illustration: seven of its thirteen plants shut down after PPA non-renewals, EPS collapsed from Tk 3.13 to Tk 0.38, and impairment losses reached Tk 1.52 billion. The company sold its 102MW Narayanganj plant to a UAE firm. It still pays a 10.50% dividend — on a payout ratio of 391%.
SUMITPOWER closed at Tk 13.70 on Monday with a P/E ratio of 51.05. That number is not expensive in the traditional sense. It is distorted — a reflection of earnings that have nearly vanished. The 7.72% dividend yield looks generous until you realise earnings do not cover it.
But Summit is not the entire sector. And the divergence within the sector is where this story gets useful.
Two Power Sectors on One Exchange
Strip out Summit Power and Energypac — both carrying their own structural problems — and the remaining five listed power stocks tell a different story.
UPGDCL, the largest by market cap at Tk 67.82 billion, trades at a P/E of 6.31 with growing earnings. FY2025 revenue rose 12.38% to Tk 39.09 billion. Net income climbed 47.44%. Its gas-fired plants serve export processing zones — customers that actually pay — and its debt-to-equity profile reflects that stability.
Baraka Patenga Power has been the sector’s strongest performer over the past year, up 50.49%, with the lowest P/E at 5.26. It swung from losses to Tk 506 million in trailing net income. Monday’s session saw 3.7 million shares trade against a 1.6 million average — investor interest is accelerating, not fading.
Doreen Power posted TTM net income of Tk 767 million — a 331% surge — and trades at a P/E of 6.61. Shahjibazar Power, up 37% over the past year, generates petroleum products alongside electricity, giving it a natural hedge against the very fuel price volatility that threatens pure-play generators.
Then there is Energypac: Tk 2.14 billion in trailing losses, negative EPS of Tk 11.25, and a share price down 16.24% over the past year. Diversified across generators, solar panels, and automobile imports — but none of those lines are producing enough to offset the core losses.
The sector is not uniformly distressed. It is bifurcated. And the bifurcation line runs precisely along fuel source and customer quality.
What Decides Who Survives
Gas-fired plants with stable offtakers — UPGDCL’s export zone customers, Doreen’s BPDB contracts — face less fuel cost risk than heavy-fuel-oil operators. Companies with diversified revenue — Shahjibazar’s petroleum products, Baraka Patenga’s multi-plant portfolio — have hedges that pure IPPs lack. Low P/E ratios across the survivors suggest the market has already priced the worst-case scenario into these names.
But the overhang remains. The Iran war’s disruption of the Strait of Hormuz has not resolved despite the April 8 ceasefire. Bangladesh imports 95% of its energy needs. The government has cut working hours and shuttered universities to conserve fuel. If Hormuz traffic does not normalise, every power company’s input costs continue rising while the payment chain remains broken.
The Tk 52,300 crore debt figure from April 9 is already outdated. By the time you read this, it is closer to Tk 54,000 crore. The companies that survive will be those whose cash flow does not depend on the government paying on time — because the government, by its own admission in Parliament, cannot.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.