US EX-Im Bank Mulls Loan to Mega Coal-Fired Power Plant in India

The US Export-Import Bank, America's export credit agency, is mulling to finance a massive coal-fired power plant in India at a time when politicians in the US are calling for its termination.

The coal project being examined by the agency is a 4,000 MW integrated coal mine and power plant located in India's eastern Jharkand state, Reuters reported.

The supercritical plant, which uses more efficient boilers than traditional coal-fired power plants, is owned by India's Reliance Power, Tata Power and coal mining firm NTPC.

The Ex-Im Bank does not divulge the names of the US vendors, who have applied for the loan, until the same is sanctioned.

The plan to fund the Indian project is regardless of the fact that President Barack Obama's regime has asked US and global public lenders to discontinue funding coal-plants in his climate change strategy.

Ex-Im Bank Survival

Earlier in the week, Ex-Im Bank chair Fred Hochberg told Bloomberg that he was optimistic the agency will garner enough support to survive US lawmakers' attempts to shut it down.

The 80-year-old institution's charter expires on 30 September, 2014.

Climate Action Plan

In January 2014, the Ex-Im Bank deferred the enforcement of a lending ban to high-carbon intensity projects to September 2014, paving the way for the Indian project to apply for a loan.

The board of the Ex-Im Bank had voted in December 2013 to end funding to coal-based plants abroad - except in certain situations - in response to Obama's Climate Action Plan, which wanted American and international lenders to do so.

In 2010, Anil Ambani's Reliance Power secured a $900m (£525m, €662m) loan from the Ex-Im Bank to build a coal-fired power plant in central India's Madhya Pradesh state.