Powering down

The government plans to raise power-generation capacity have taken a hit in the last week. The problem is a lack of coal and money. A number of coal-based power plants having the considerable cumulative generating capacity of about 7000 MW are in trouble and likely to be shelved because of the surprising ‘unavailability’ of coal. The unavailability of money may not be so surprising, but the absence of coal in coal-based projects points to something very wrong in the planning process. The Gadani Power Park appears to be the principal victim of the shortage of coal. This 6,600 MW project is now considering ‘restructuring’ its business model because the number of projects within the Park has decreased. The Chinese, who had signed an MoU in respect of the Park are also walking away. A project in the Salt Range has informed the Prime Minister that there is not enough coal to make it commercially viable; and the Japanese who were to have financed the project are instead looking at assessing the commercial potential of coal deposits in the Harnai district.

Also in trouble are power projects in Gwadar and Port Qasim, with the Thar coal project being seen as the game changer that is going to turn around the power deficit problem in the reasonably near future. We hope that this faith is not also misplaced. These are not small projects, and in the case of projects moving as far down the line as they have without adequate funding to see them to fruition or, and this almost beggars belief, having insufficient coal to make them commercially viable. Surely it is axiomatic that if a government is to back a key project or set of projects based around coal then it has to be established that there is sufficient coal in the ground to make the time, effort and expenditure worthwhile. To find that there is not this late in the day at the very least suggests that whoever was paid to determine what the coal supplies were was incompetent or corrupt and quite possibly both. There can be no excuse for this ineptitude and dereliction. A list of heads that are to roll would be welcome reading.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2016.

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