The government on Wednesday decided that it would only use the coal reserves in Thar for future power generation, while converting existing power plants for coal-based power generation.
The landmark policy decision was taken by Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf while chairing a meeting of the Thar Coal and Energy Board at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat here.
The meeting was informed that the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) and the Engro Corporation were working on an integrated coal mine and a power project with an estimated cost of 1.3 billion dollars at Block 2 of Thar Coal Project. The project would mine approximately 6.5 million tonnes coal annually, besides constructing a power plant of 1200 megawatts. The prime minister also decided in principle to provide a sovereign guarantee to the SECMC, a joint venture of the Government of Sindh and the Engro Power, and directed the Ministry of Finance to make required arrangements. Ashraf said that in the present financial situation, there was little space for providing sovereign guarantees. However, this is a strategic decision which has to be taken for meeting the growing energy requirements of the country, he stressed. The Sindh government had requested the federal government that the conversion of existing 800 MW and new 600 MW power plants at Jamshoro be designed on Thar Coal specifications.
The prime minister directed the Ministry of Water and Power to sign within a week a Coal Off-Take agreement between GENCO and SECMC for the Asian Development Bank financed conversion of the existing 800 MW and new 600 MW thermal power projects at Jamshoro.
“The history will not excuse us if we do not take correct decision in time,” the prime minister said. “Today we have laid the foundation of an energy policy, which is based on our indigenous resources and will lead to savings of huge foreign exchange presently being spent on the import of fossil fuels to run our thermal power plants,” he said. In addition, this policy decision will ensure energy security that has been eluding us for such a long time, he added.
Heat about nuclear energy for producing electricity? Use that instead of making more bombs.
This is repetitive tragedy of Pakistan and political game of ruling group that what should be done on priority is planned on last stage of ruling tenure or in service.that is why In Pakistan all the good ideas are possesses by either retired persons or political groups those are dethroned.In the end the sufferers are people of Pakistan and true victim is Pakistan.God save us greed and mismanagement of ruling elites of Pakistan.
There are some waste interest which are against the big goal project, the OIL cartilaginous not wanted to allow the implementation of Coal project , I don't want to give facts and figures about coal in the desert of Sind our reputed sciences are working hard to get best result out of there research, today I was watching an article on GEO that this project needs billion of rupees but government only up to now release 8 cror rupees, which is only for the wages and faculties of the staff.
Heat about nuclear energy for producing electricity? Use that instead of making more bombs.
Please refer suggestions published on Sept24, 2012 http://buildindustrialpakistan.blogspot.com/2012/…
the only reason for delying to activate this project is " the coal energy will be cheapest than other energy producer process… but only one time expense/ initial investment will be occuring… "
Comments are closed.