Thar Coal Gasification Project hits a snag
The Thar coal gasification pilot project has hit a huge snag as furnace oil lobbies and the bureaucracy are pressurising the government to shelve the project.
Sources told The Express Tribune that certain bureaucratic lobbies are using all their forces to shrink the allocation for the coal gasification project in the upcoming financial year 2013. The Planning Commission Secretary is also not fond of the project, the source added.
Planning Commission Member Energy Shahid Sattar has also taken a firm stand against the Thar coal gasification project.
“The Coal Gasification Pilot project run by scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand in Sindh has not yielded results,” he said while addressing the 4th Oil and Gas Pakistan 2012 Forum on Saturday. He maintained that the pilot project was not sustainable as it shut down after running for four months.
“The audit team that visited the site revealed that no work has been done on Thar coal gasification project,” Shahid Sattar told The Express Tribune. He added the project has failed.
Planning Commission Science and Technology member Dr Samar Mubarakmand ruled out the claim made by Member Energy and said that “we have completed work on the first phase of coal gasification project”. He said that all tests of gas converted from coal were positive.
“We successfully operated the project for four months and then shut it to avoid any coal wastage,” he said adding that a power plant is needed to use the gas for electricity production.
He did, however, say that the second phase of the project is getting a hard time to arrange funds. “We need $105 million to complete the second phase of the coal project. There is no money to even start work,” he said.
The government approved the underground coal gasification project at an estimated cost of Rs9 billion after initial experiments proved to be a success.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2012.
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@TN, advocate: I agree with you for Cathay, if the exploration agreement was signed they should have been given the rights to explore no matter what.
Yes a huge amount of water will be needed for power plants, but if the govt. is serious enough for implementation and developing thar coalfield, this is not a big deal for them and possibilities are available for them to provide water.
FYI, the covering area is about 3000sq. miles.
@Geoscientist: You are right about Cathay. By the way they were willing to spent few hundred million dollars to look for CBM. The dollars would have had been spent in Pakistan and if they were wrong then no loss to the Govt. Cathay went to Afghanistan and guess what they found? One of the largest lithium mines, 1.3 billion of oil field, substantial gold/copper deposits. Visit mines Ministry of Afghanistan to check for gold tendering. We need a giant mine operator for the coal and several power companies to set up power plants. There is not a single major corporation running both. Our goal from Thar should be at least 10,000 MW (could be in stages). A lot of water will be needed -- guess where it is going to come from? THAR is much bigger than 12 blocks covering a little over 1,000 sq. miles. When we talk about 180 billion tons of coal then certainly the 12 blocks cannot hold this huge amount. The Sindh Govt could not provide us THAR Coal Field boundaries when we signed CBM Agreement in 2007.
@ ahmed
As per my knowledge in these type of plant they burn only hazardous gases on flare same like H2S, most of flare systems designed to burn H2S in to SO2 which is also dangerous but it souble in air so no need any tension in this aspect Secondly I saw to many power plant which works on phase change fuel i.e. GTL in Qatar, at intial stage they also faces to much problems to run that plant but now they are experience and making world biggest GTL plant. Thar project (coal gasified) we have same process in our steel mill coke oven battery which make fuel gas after that this gas use in power generation so be become pioneer in this type of power plant we need it and we know Pakistani Jugaro nation they can do anything at any plant
@TN, advocate: I know the story about the canadian company, which if im not wrong was Cathay Oil & Gas, well the basic fact is that cbm is generated in coal types which have attained a better maturity which is not there in our thar lignite case. Nevertheless a german and a chinese company has studied the area for cbm and stated no sign of it due to the same reason i mentioned above. Methane is usually present in more or less all coal seams, but either it is of commercial scale is the real question.
Now regarding the open pit mining, there is no need to create a pit that large just around 100million tons per year would be enough to produce 20,000MW of electricity. And this need to be done by allocating small blocks which the govt. has already done. Private/public partnerships are the best option.
By far govt. has explored 12 blocks and the boundries are more or less known.
@Truthbetold: One of the successful companies is South Dakota Coal Gasification Company. I can try an revive their interest if anyone is interested. The plant is running and producing gas and electricity.
Coal gasification technology is a old and well-established one. There is no need to spend millions of dollars on a demonstration pilot plant. If Pakistan is serious, all it has to do is to give a contract to a reputed international company to build an actual large scale plant. There is no need to invent anything new. Mubarakman is wasting money on this pilot plant.
Just a question; if this is really a case where a power generation opportunity is being unjustly pushed back by vested interests, where is the Tsunami?
Why isnt the Tsunami supporting this and bringing pressure on the government by raising public awareness and demand for action.
@Zamir Malik: I have spent last 10 years or so in Islamabad and Karachi working with international investors to set up power plants and CBM gas exploration project after relocating back from America. Dr Samar is a GOOD scientist but does not know much about geology, mines, turbines etc. PLUS NOTHING ABOUT CAPITAL -- WITHOUT MONEY YOU ARE GOOD AS DEAD! I am a corporate attorney and if conduct a murder trial would definitively get death sentence. Jack of all trades is master on none! PRIVATE INVESTORS ARE THE ONLY WAY TO GO FORWARD! Let the project returns be good enough to attract major corporations & banks.
@Geoscientist: You may be right about CBM but one of my client has signed an CBM Exploration & Production Agreement with Sindh Govt in 2007 and willing to invest few hundred million dollars with USGS and JT Boyde as sub contractors. We are ready to go but our govt is not issuing us a recon licence. Open pit mining is perfect for Thar BUT WE DON'T KNOW WHERE TO PUT A LARGE MINE THAT COULD PRODUCE AROUND 100,000 MILLION TONS TO PRODUCE 15-20,000 MW. By the way we even don't know the boundaries of Thar coal fields -- only 8-10 BLOCKS mean Thar to us.
Making coal gas is perfectly feasible. P personally know of a company doing that in South Dakota. The company has paid back much of the $15-billion money loanded to it by the US governmet. If there are people blocking the project, they must explain their reasons in ways better than simple assertions.
Dr Samar Mubarik has announed today that Pakistan HAS STARTED Thar coal gas project and it will be available from End may (future projection is 50 Thousand megawat electricity a year). . Coal is not environmentally friendly BUT this one is used through NEW TECHNOLOGY that is ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY where coal is burnt through holes and doesn't create high amount of CO gases. . Even Indian Nobel prize winner scientist said on BBC that environmental concerns are important but one has to balance the need that more than 600 Million INDIANS are without electricity or clean water.
Actually the god of these bureaucrats (USA) doesn't want Pakistan to be strong so they are doing everything to stop this project.
Why don't you guys just Google the "Underground coal gasification" and read the stuff? Why govt is so afraid of giving some money for research and development when they spent billions for Rental Power Plants???
There is a news in jung urdu paper that Dr Samar mand said in may 2012 we gonna see elect made by coal then why our bast bearocrats amking hurdle for .... may be they world for third hand like our news reporters....
Best of luck to Mr Samar Mubarak, I have complete confidence in my peers of scientists, its high time we start doing things scientifically. He has never lied to us before and i am sure he will not miss lead us.
and another disgrace the Pakistani govt
@Jalal Ishaq: using local coal for producing electricity might be less expensive than imported oil but it is definitely not a clean source because the burning of coal causes tremendous air pollution, e.g. CO2 - the worst climat killer. To prevent this you have to install a highly sophisticated filter system which in turn makes gasifacation of coal very expensive, besides, these filter systems consume a lot of electricity themselves. So maybe there is some lobbying and corruption involved in the closing down of the project, but I understand that one really has to think twice about the consequences of burning coal for energy production.
Shahid Sattar member energy; what are his credentials to so say a project is a success or a failure? What has he delivered so far to this nation when compared to Dr Samar? He is probably from the oil cartel and would not support the idea of cheap and clean sources of energy
@TN, advocate: there is no sign of CBM in Thar, even if there are some gas shows, that is not of commercial scale.
Regarding Dr. Mubarakmand project, the fact is that the syn-gas thus produced via gasification will be of very low heating value (1/8th of the conventional natural gas produced in country) .. Dr. Mubarak, despite of being prominent in media, has never stated this important point regarding the heating value of the gas. Without any technical assessment how this project has progressed so far is a big question.
Open-pit mining and direct burning of Thar lignite in power plants is the only technically and economically viable solution.
Im gona listen to Dr. Samar instead of PC officials ... If the scientist tells me it was successful then IT WAS! shame on PC on siding with the Oil Lobby
Well Mr Samar is a scientist having expertise in missile/defence related field not coal gasification field as far i know, they have drilled what i know is around 52 wells, in the beginning they didnt have the clue about this all stuff so their starting wells got flooded with water and they lost most of the investement in these hit and trial, then somebody told them better use some pipes/casing which is used for oil wells to keep the water then they started to use these pipes and so on. what i mean to say they are doing it by hit and trial method, its not a unviersity sceince project, there should be ppl related to this field purely.
"we turned off the project after 4 months because we didn't want to waste coal"... What kind of sick excuse is this? So you acknowledge what member planning is saying? second, On one hand you boast that this is the largest reserve in the world and then you worry about getting it depleted after just 4 months when the auditors arrive. This is fishy, you have to be transparent, sir, there is no free lunch.
@TN, advocate: For your information the project is under the supervision of Sindh government and after the 18th amendment now provinces are responsible for it not the federal government.
The higher ups in the Govt. are not interested in Pakistan producing it's own electricity because their masters don't want Pakistan to progress
How come non technical people are deciding that what is feasible and what is not.?. Dr Samar Mubarak is a known person and he is a Scientist and when he say it can be done then we dont have to listen to Politicians and bureaucratic circles that it could be done or not.
It is a must watch for every Person where Samar Mubarak have explained this project in detail. http://www.awaztoday.com/News-Talk-Shows/20165/Special-interview-of-Dr-Samar-Mubarakmand-by-Imran-Sulatan.aspx
@TN, advocate: Do you even know the team of Samar Mubarak?.He is a famous scientist of great repute in Pakistan. He had repeatedly told on programs that he is forced to abandon the work on this project because government dont want to do this since furnace oil lobbies are so strong that they are not allowing any work to be done on this project.
Just watch this show where he answered some of the questions.
http://www.awaztoday.com/News-Talk-Shows/22946/Rana-Mubashir-Prime-Time-10th-May-2012.aspx
what samar sahib is saying that it need the finance to make it work but this ten percent controlled govt r not ready to lose billion in commission from oil companies and as per the technology its not rocket seince its simple and cheep but yes no commission for mr ten percent in it this will save the future of pakistan but not in this era of blatant coruption sadly we have to wait a bit more.....
Dr. Mubarak is noted for his contributions in Pakistan. He has also an effective figure in replacing AQ Khan as the head of our nuclear programme.
However projects such as these require technical feasibility and the govt should not continue wasting money on failed project. Thar coal is of poor quality and in a time of crisis we cannot afford to take on long winded methods with a lack of justifiable probability. We must encourage private sector investment in traditional sources of energy e.g. oil and gas and improve our infrastructure.
Another wastage of our taxes! Let the private sector do these projects, if they deem feasible. The jokers in Islamabad know ONLY to spent our tax money! For Thar the Coal Bed Methane project with USGS 5 TCF recovery estimates seems feasible to attract private investors. Lets open Thar to foreign investors because we don't have the experts, equipment and $s.
what i understood from my friend working over there, first the ppl working over this project are not experienced in this field, secondly they got gas from one well and that too blue flame, means H2S gas, which can be burned but cant be used for any useful purpose. atleast i am not expecting anything from these guys other then wasting the funds.
Dr. Samar, you need to give commission to the Govt. Our Govt. only works to get commissions, kick backs.
why Govt discourage investors?