Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) and Bright Eagle Enterprises held their first joint session on Thursday to kick off the Joint Development Agreement for the conversion of KESC’s 1,260 MW Bin Qasim Power Station from RFO fired to coal fired. The joint session was attended by a visiting 14-member high level delegation from Bright Eagle Enterprises, China Resource Power and China National Technical Import and Export Corporation which aimed at setting up high level points to drive the project forward.
The delegation under the leadership of Mr. Chen Ping, Chairman of Bright Eagle Enterprises, a company sponsored by Chinese and Korean investors that would be funding conversion of BQPS-I to coal according to the Joint Development Agreement signed last month, also visited the BQPS site to obtain a tangible perspective on this significant undertaking by KESC.
The visiting delegation and KESC management had a productive dialogue aimed at strengthening the relationship between the partners and setting concrete milestones to achieve the desired goals. Both sides reiterated that the prospect of Pakistan-China friendship should be translated into joint ventures to undertake and complete projects which also serve the larger public interests.
Besides holding the position of Chairman of BEEGL, the delegation leader Mr. Chen Ping also serves as the Chairman of Sun TV Hong Kong and of Tidetime Group. The dignitaries also included Mr. Wang Yujun, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of China Resource Power, and Mr. LU Zhikang, Marketing Director of China National Technical Import and Export Corporation.
For the purpose of setting the Joint Development Agreement in motion, Bright Eagle Enterprises has teamed up with leading energy companies from China, namely China Resources Power, and China National Technical Import and Export Corporation. China Resources Power, with a current installed capacity of 20,000 MW, largely coal fired, is a subsidiary of China Resources Co. Ltd., one of the conglomerates in Hong Kong and mainland China whose core businesses cover retail, power, breweries, real estate, food, medicine, textiles, chemical products and gas compressors, among other things. China National Technical Import and Export Corporation (CNTIC) is a state-owned foreign trade corporation, specializing in import and export of technologies and complete sets of equipment.
The conversion project entails replacement of the existing 6 x 210 MW RFO boilers with coal boilers as well as construction of coal and ash handling facilities in different phases and is the first of its kind in Pakistan. KESC is already in the progression of finalizing its feasibility study through a reputed US-based consultant, ‘Knight Piesold’, having extensive world-wide experience in coal based projects. Replacing residual fuel oil (RFO) based boilers with coal fired technology would help KESC in attaining fuel security by diversifying its existing fuel mix, better utilization of existing fleet and most importantly aid in reducing cost of power generation; ultimately providing the consumers relief by lowering of the end user tariff.
