Powering the future: Thar to provide fuel for all coal-based power plants

Existing, new power projects to be designed as per Thar coal specifications.

ISLAMABAD: The government on Wednesday decided that Thar coal will be used for all coal-based power generation and all conversions of existing and construction of new power projects will be designed according to Thar Coal specifications in the future.

The landmark policy decision was taken by the Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, while chairing a meeting of the Thar Coal and Energy Board at the PM Secretariat. The meeting was informed that the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) – a joint venture between Government of Sindh and Engro Powergen – and the Engro Corporation were working on an integrated coal mine and a power project with an estimated cost of $1.3 billion at Block 2 of Thar coal project for mining 6.5 million tons of coal per annum and establishing a power plant of 1,200 megawatts (MW). The premier also decided in principle to provide a sovereign guarantee to the SECMC and directed the Ministry of Finance to arrange the same.

Ashraf said that in the present financial situation, there was little space for providing sovereign guarantees. However, this was a strategic decision which had 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 800MW and new 600MW power plants at Jamshoro be designed according to Thar coal specifications. He directed the Ministry of Water and Power to sign, a coal off-take agreement between power generation companies and the SECMC for the Asian Development Bank financed conversion of the thermal power projects at Jamshoro.

“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,” Ashraf said. Besides, this policy decision will ensure energy security that had been eluding us for such a long time, he added.

The premier said that God blessed Pakistan with the sixth largest coal reserves and it was now up to us to utilise the huge coal deposits for the progress and prosperity of the country by generating affordable electricity. He hoped that the decisions will herald a new beginning and lay the foundation for sustainable socio-economic development of the country. Thar coal field were estimated to have reserves of 175 billion tons, 68 times higher than Pakistan’s total gas reserves.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2012.