PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network

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Cheap Thar Coal to End Load Shedding in Pakistan

Coal is the cheapest and the most common fuel used directly or indirectly to produce electricity and heat in the world today. Global coal consumption was about 6.7 billion tons in 2006 and is expected to increase 48% to 9.98 billion tons by 2030, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). China produced 2.38 billion tons in 2006. India produced about 447.3 million tons and Pakistan mined only about 8 million tons in 2006. 68.7% of China's electricity comes from coal. The United States consumes about 14% of the world total, using 90% of it for generation of electricity. The U.S. coal-fired plants have over 300 GW of capacity.

The Thar desert region in Pakistan is endowed with one of the largest coal reserves in the world. Discovered in early 1990s, the Thar coal has not yet been developed to produce usable energy. With the devastating increases in imported oil bill and the growing shortages of gas and electricity in the country, the coal development is finally beginning to get the attention it deserves. Coal contributes about 20% of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions but it is the cheapest fuel available, according to Pew Center on Global Climate Change. It can provide usable energy at a cost of between $1 and $2 per MMBtu compared to $6 to $12 per MMBtu for oil and natural gas, and coal prices are relatively stable. Coal is inherently higher-polluting and more carbon-intensive than other energy alternatives. However, coal is so inexpensive that one can spend quite a bit on pollution control and still maintain coal’s competitive position.

At the end of the decade of 1990s when the economy was stagnant, Pakistan had about 1200 MW excess capacity. Between 2000 and 2008, the electricity demand from industries and consumers grew dramatically with the rapid economic expansion that more than doubled the nation's GDP from $60 billion to $170 billion. The Musharraf government added about 3500 MW of capacity during this period which still left a gap of over 1500 MW by 2008. The economy has since slowed to a crawl, the electricity demand has decreased, and yet the nation is suffering the worst ever power outages in the history of Pakistan. As discussed in an earlier post, Pakistan's current installed capacity is around 18,0000 MW, of which around 20% is hydroelectric. Much of the rest is thermal, fueled primarily by gas and oil. Pakistan Electric Power Company PEPCO blames independent power producers (IPPs) for the electricity crisis, as they have only been able to give PEPCO much less than the 5,800 MW of confirmed capacity. Most of the power plants in the country are operating well below installed capacity because the operators are not being paid enough to buy fuel. Circular debt owed to the power producers and oil companies is currently believed to be largely responsible for severe load shedding affecting most of the nation.

The circular debt has assumed alarming portions since 2008, resulting in the current severe power problems. Former finance minister Saukat Tarin recently told the News that “in real terms the circular debt has swelled to Rs108 billion which mainly includes non-payment of Rs42 billion by KESC, Rs21 billion by the government of Sindh and Rs15-16 billion from commercial consumers to the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco)". Just prior to leaving office, Tarin decided to raise Rs. 25 billion as a small step toward settling the swelling unpaid bills owed to power producers.

Per capita energy consumption in Pakistan is estimated at 14.2 million Btu, which is much higher than Bangladesh's 5 million BTUs per capita but slightly less than India's 15.9 million BTU per capita energy consumption. South Asia's per capita energy consumption is only a fraction of other industrializing economies in Asia region such as China (56.2 million BTU), Thailand (58 million BTU) and Malaysia (104 million BTU), according to the US Dept of Energy 2006 report. To put it in perspective, the world average per capita energy use is about 65 million BTUs and the average American consumes 352 million BTUs. With 40% of the Pakistani households that have yet to receive electricity, and only 18% of the households that have access to pipeline gas, the energy sector is expected to play a critical role in economic and social development. With this growth comes higher energy consumption and stronger pressures on the country’s energy resources. At present, natural gas and oil supply the bulk (80 percent) of Pakistan’s energy needs. However, the consumption of those energy sources vastly exceeds the supply. For instance, Pakistan currently produces only 18.3 percent of the oil it consumes, fostering a dependency on imports that places considerable strain on the country’s financial position. On the other hand, hydro and coal are perhaps underutilized today, as Pakistan has ample potential supplies of both.

The country's creaky and outdated electricity infrastructure loses over 30 percent, some of it due to rampant power theft, of generated power in transit, more than seven times the losses of a well-run system, according to the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank; and a lack of spare high-voltage grid capacity limits the transmission of power from hydroelectric plants in the north to make up for shortfalls in the south.

It does seem that Pakistan is finally getting serious about utilizing its vast coal resources to produce electricity and gas. Talking recently with GeoTV's Hamid Mir, Pepco Managing Director Tahir Basharat Cheema shared the following list of coal projects being launched:

1. The Sind Government has awarded a 1200 MW project to extract Thar coal and produce electricity to Engro Power.

2. A similar 1200 MW project is being undertaken by Pepco in Thar. The Pepco project also includes a 700 Km transmission line to connect Thar plants with the national grid.

3. An experimental project for underground coal gasification is being built by Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr. Mubarakmand to tap underground coal to produce 50 MW.

4. Another experimental 50 MW project using pressure coal gasification is planned by Pepco.

The coal and various renewable energy projects are expected to be online in the next 2 to 5 years. If these projects do succeed and more investors are attracted to the power sector, then Pakistan has the potential to produce about 100,000 MW a year for a century or longer. But these efforts will not help in the short or immediate term. What is urgently needed is decisive action to resolve the circular debt problems and restore power generation to full installed capacity immediately.

Here is a video clip of former president General Musharraf talking about the worst ever load shedding being faced by Pakistanis today:

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 25, 2017 at 8:07pm: #Pakistan takes delivery of Erie-built #GE locomotives to haul 12,000 tons of #coal daily. #energy

http://www.goerie.com/news/20170123/pakistan-takes-delivery-of-erie...

"Over the next 10 years, the (Pakistan) government aims to increase the share of rail in transportation from 4 percent to 20 percent, which will help lower the costs and environmental impact of moving goods across the country," according to a statement from the state-owned railroad.

The majority of GE Transportation's Evolution locomotives - its most technologically advanced model - are built at its plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

The locomotives sold to Pakistan, however, are being built in Erie, where the company builds most of the locomotives it produces for foreign sale.

To mark the arrival of the new GE locomotives, more than 200 senior government officials, private sector partners and members of the media attended a ceremonial luncheon at the port, according to Pakistan Railways.

Building the locomotives has provided some much-needed work at the Erie plant at a time when new orders have been slow to arrive. Earlier this year, GE Transportation reduced the workforce at its local plant by 1,500 people because of a slowdown in the rail freight industry.

While much of that slowdown has been attributed to reduced reliance on coal, the new GE locomotives delivered to Pakistan will be used primarily to transport coal inside Pakistan.

Five locomotives are expected to haul coal daily, carrying 12,000 tons of freight.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 2, 2017 at 7:37am: #Pakistan to build 15,300 MW of #coal power. #Indian co building 38,000 MW coal power in #India & #Bangladesh #CPEC

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/climate/china-energy-companies-c...

When China halted plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, even as President Trump vowed to “bring back coal” in America, the contrast seemed to confirm Beijing’s new role as a leader in the fight against climate change.

But new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants paints a very different picture: China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.

These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal, according to tallies compiled by Urgewald, an environmental group based in Berlin. Many of the plants are in China, but by capacity, roughly a fifth of these new coal power stations are in other countries.

Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Urgewald’s tally, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent.

In China, concerns over smog and climate change have prompted a move toward renewables, as have slowing economic growth and a gradual shift in the Chinese economy away from heavy manufacturing and toward consumer industries. The addition of domestic capacity, though large on paper, does not mean there will be growth in coal consumption. The current coal plants are operating far below capacity because demand for coal-generated power has slowed considerably.

But overseas, the Chinese are playing a different game.

Shanghai Electric Group, one of the country’s largest electrical equipment makers, has announced plans to build coal power plants in Egypt, Pakistan and Iran with a total capacity of 6,285 megawatts — almost 10 times the 660 megawatts of coal power it has planned in China.

The China Energy Engineering Corporation, which has no public plans to develop coal power in China, is building 2,200 megawatts’ worth of coal-fired power capacity in Vietnam and Malawi. Neither company responded to requests for comment.

Of the world’s 20 biggest coal plant developers, 11 are Chinese, according to a database published by Urgewald.

Some of the countries targeted for coal-power expansion, like Egypt or Pakistan, currently burn almost no coal, and the new coal plants could set the course of their national energy policies for decades, environmentalists warn.

In Egypt, coal projects by Shanghai Electric and other global developers are set to bring the country’s coal-fired capacity to 17,000 megawatts, from near zero, according to the Urgewald database.

Pakistan’s coal capacity is set to grow to 15,300 megawatts from 190. In Malawi, planned coal projects would bring its coal-fired capacity to 3,500 megawatts from zero.

Chinese companies are not the only drivers of the global coal expansion.

The world’s single largest coal-plant developer is India’s National Thermal Power Corporation, which plans to build more than 38,000 megawatts of new coal capacity in India and Bangladesh. The corporation did not respond to an email query.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 19, 2017 at 8:16am: Coal Project Is Latest Sign of Growing Pakistan-China Relationship

https://www.voanews.com/a/coal-project-is-latest-sign-of-growing-pa...

As the car speeds along gleaming blacktop highways in Pakistan's southern desert of Tharparkar, it is clear the new roads were not built to serve the poor herders and nomads who live in cone-shaped straw homes and subsist on herding sheep and cattle.

Indeed, a few decades ago, the Tharparkar desert in Sindh province bordering India was accessible only by crab-shaped vehicles that crawled over sand dunes by day and under star-studded skies at night, to reach the people of a forgotten century.

That changed as international feasibility studies sanctioned by Islamabad found that nearly half the desert covered coal. The turning point came as China offered to excavate and convert the fuel to help Pakistan cover its electricity shortfall of 25,000 megawatts.

So while the world turned away from coal to cleaner fuels, the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) began digging a layered, rectangular trough near the town of Islamkot.

Coal mine area

From above, the mining area looks like Pakistan's 5,000-year-old archaeological site, Moen Jo Daro (Mound of the Dead). But with Pakistani and Chinese flags fluttering side by side — and the hustle-bustle of dump trucks — the excavation clearly looks to the future.

Across the barren hills, the State Power International Mendong (SPIM) and China Machinery Engineering Corporation's power plants are poised to convert the coal to energy — reportedly 660 megawatts by the end of 2017.

Just outside the power plants sits a Chinese housing colony for the workers it has imported, a common practice for the country's foreign projects.

Partners in change

Meanwhile, Engro has a mandate from the Sindh government to ensure that the desert people, sitting atop the world's seventh-largest coal reserves, become willing partners in the transformation of their habitat.

Already, Engro has created "Khushal Thar" (Prosperous Thar), training 694 people on monthly stipends to be supplied to their Chinese partners.

Armed with a strategy for social change, Engro trains women as dump truck drivers. Recruiter Jehan Ara said the corporation, initially concerned about a backlash, first discussed the community's response to inducting women into an all-male profession, and only then made the positions official.

Interviewed in Islamkot, Marvi, 35, beamed at the prospect of driving dump trucks. Having six children was apparently no deterrent. Her husband, Ratan Lal, was on hand to cheer her, saying: "She is tough; she climbs trees to gather firewood and gets water from afar."

But the community has concerns that water from the mining process, discharged into Gorano village 28 kilometers away, could pollute drinking water sources. In Mithi town, people have repeatedly demonstrated to sound the alarm, with the fears echoed by Sindh's civil society.

For generations, the desert people have lived amid peacocks, sheep and camels. Engro plans to compensate and relocate them from their straw homes to model homes, fully equipped with schools and hospitals. Muslims and Hindus are to be resettled side by side, emblematic of the peaceful coexistence within the border community.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 6, 2017 at 7:12pm: 'Spectacular' drop in renewable energy costs leads to record global boost
Falling solar and wind prices have led to new power deals across the world despite investment in renewables falling

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/06/spectacular-dro...

Renewable energy capacity around the world was boosted by a record amount in 2016 and delivered at a markedly lower cost, according to new global data – although the total financial investment in renewables actually fell.

The greater “bang-for-buck” resulted from plummeting prices for solar and wind power and led to new power deals in countries including Denmark, Egypt, India, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates all being priced well below fossil fuel or nuclear options.

Analysts warned that the US’s withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement, announced last week by Donald Trump, risked the US being left behind in the fast-moving transition to a low-carbon economy. But they also warned that the green transition was still not happening fast enough to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, especially in the transport and heating sectors.

The new renewable energy capacity installed worldwide in 2016 was 161GW, a 10% rise on 2015 and a new record, according to REN21, a network of public and private sector groups covering 155 nations and 96% of the world’s population.

The new record capacity cost $242bn, a 23% reduction in investment compared to 2015, and renewables investment remained larger than for all fossil fuels. Subsidies for green energy, however, are still much lower than those for coal, oil and gas.

New solar power provided the biggest boost – half of all new capacity – followed by wind power at a third and hydropower at 15%. It is the first year that the new solar capacity added has been greater than any other electricity-producing technology.

“A global energy transition [is] well under way, with record new additions of installed renewable energy capacity, rapidly falling costs and the decoupling of economic growth and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions for the third year running,” said Arthouros Zervos, chair of REN21.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 1, 2018 at 11:13am: Economist Magazine: "Just 1% of the vast #Thar #coal reserve discovered in 1992 could supply a fifth of #Pakistan's current #electricity generation for half a century" #CPEC #energy #infrastructure

https://www.economist.com/news/business/21736185-just-1-vast-reserv...

PAKISTAN’s enormous mineral wealth has long lain untapped. Since a 1992 geological survey spotted one of the world’s largest coal reserves in Thar, a scrubby desert in the southern province of Sindh, prospectors have hardly dug up a lump. Among those to flounder is a national hero. Samar Mubarakmand, feted for his role in Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons programme, has just shut the coal-gasification company he founded in 2010, when he vowed on live television to crack Thar.

---

To such qualms, the government offers three rejoinders. First, severe power shortages have long blighted the nation, and renewable sources cannot offer the daylong, year-round power it needs. Second, coal accounts for less than 1% of current generation, compared with 70% in neighbouring India and China. And third, domestic coal would allow the country to forgo expensive imports of the fuel for newly built power stations, a drain on fast-dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.

---

Eight years ago Engro bought the rights to one of Thar’s 13 blocks, containing 1% of the reserve (more than enough given the gargantuan size of the mine). To work on extraction, it formed the country’s biggest ever public-private partnership, the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), in which Engro digs and the state provides infrastructure. Relying on the state can break strong firms. Engro itself almost went bankrupt in 2012 after the government refused to honour a sovereign guarantee to provide gas to one of its fertiliser plants. Yet without similar government support, no other Thar block-owners have secured financing, leaving Engro’s diggers, which began work last year, to move ahead.

The endeavour benefits from being in the group of infrastructure projects that make up the $62bn China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a hoped-for trade route. Western banks shook their heads when approached about a coal project, so Engro has relied on Chinese financing. Analysts note an irony in China’s promotion of coal abroad as it withdraws from the fuel at home. Handling the extraction at Thar is the China Machinery Engineering Corporation, a state-owned firm with expertise beyond Pakistan’s reach.

Around 126 metres below the sands of Thar, with just 20 more to go, Engro’s diggers can now almost touch their prize. When the coal is reached, as is expected in mid-2018, it will feed a pit-mouth power station constructed by Engro, and, in time, three others owned by partners in the SECMC. These stations will furnish around a fifth of the country’s electricity for the next 50 years. The financial rewards could be vast. “All my richest friends are jumping up and down [because they did not get there first]”, says the boss of one big multinational construction business.

Hurdles remain, not least complaints from nearby villagers about the disposal of the vast quantities of wastewater from the mine on their ancestral grazing lands in the form of a reservoir. In reply, Engro stresses its social work in the surrounding district of Tharparkar, the poorest in Sindh, which includes the construction of several free schools. More self-interestedly, it is training locals to drive so they can man the dump trucks that trundle day and night around the mine. According to Shamsuddin Shaikh, chief executive of Engro Powergen, the conglomerate’s energy division, Engro also has its sights on Reko Diq, a gargantuan and long-stalled copper mine in Balochistan, the least developed of Pakistan’s provinces. To tap one of the country’s two largest and most niggardly mines is hard enough. Imagine cracking them both.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 7, 2018 at 7:34am: Pakistan’s pivot to coal to boost energy gets critics fired up
Plan to spend $35bn loan from China on new power stations looks set to continue under Khan

https://www.ft.com/content/5cd07544-7960-11e8-af48-190d103e32a4

Pakistan believes it may have found a way out of its long-term energy supply crisis, thanks largely to more than $35bn worth of loans provided by China under the $60bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The country has experienced years of rolling blackouts that have left residents in the dark and stifled the country’s manufacturing industries.

But now it is investing in an energy technology that is fast going out of fashion in other parts of the region — coal.

Under the CPEC, Beijing is planning to spend at least $35bn building new power stations, which will be mainly coal-fired, using resources from coalfields at Thar, about 400km east of Karachi. The plans will mean building 9.5 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity — a third of the total capacity the country has already built.

This is in stark contrast with India, which recently said it would not approve any more new coal power plants — not least because the unit price of solar power has dropped below that of coal.

The previous government has defended its energy policies. Shehbaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, which lost power in last week’s election, told the Financial Times before the vote: “We have built 11,000 megawatts of additional capacity in the space of five years, compared with 18,000 over the previous 66 years.”

And the strategy looks set to continue under the new prime minister Imran Khan, head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. Again speaking before the election, Mr Khan told the FT he backed using Thar coal to boost the country’s electricity supplies. “Thar coal is in a desert, it’s near the coast, and there are new technologies which now make it possible that you don’t damage the environment,” he said.

Defenders of Pakistan’s build-up of coal point out that the fuel currently accounts for a very small fraction of the country’s installed electricity capacity. In India, that figure is around 75 per cent.

They also say that with tariffs higher in Pakistan than in neighbouring countries, encouraging cheap electricity supply is essential to help develop exporting manufacturers. The average electricity tariff for industry is around $0.13 per kilowatt-hour, compared with $0.12 in India and $0.09 in Bangladesh.

Pakistan exported goods worth 8.2 per cent of its gross domestic product last year, according to the World Bank, compared with 15 per cent by Bangladesh and nearly 19 per cent by India.

“Manufacturers in India and Bangladesh get cheaper electricity than those in Pakistan do,” says Ehsan Malik, chief executive of the Pakistan Business Council. “This is particularly problematic for the garment industry, especially since all three countries make clothes at the lower end of the sector, where energy prices account for a higher proportion of costs.”

Others, however, warn that while solar prices are falling, Pakistan is building a series of large power stations that will not only pollute the environment but could also saddle the country with high debts and could even become stranded assets in the long run.

Fiza Farhan, an independent development consultant and a former director of Buksh Energy, a solar power company, says: “I have banged my head against walls for years trying to get the government to launch solar projects on mega scales.

“But it was impossible to get projects into the final stage — every time we would get to the financing stage, the government would revise the tariffs.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 21, 2018 at 8:33am: Engro Thar Block II Power Plant

https://www.power-technology.com/projects/engro-thar-block-ii-power...

Engro Thar Block II power plant is a new coal-fired power station being developed in the Tharparkar district, Sindh, Pakistan. It will be Pakistan’s first power plant to use indigenous coal reserves of Thar.

The 660MW power plant is part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which forms part of the Belt and Road Initiative to link China with Europe. It is being developed by Engro Powergen Thar (EPTL), a joint venture of Engro Powergen (EPL), China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), Habib Bank, and Liberty Mills.

----------

Two more coal-fired power plants named TEL and ThalNova are being developed in Thar Block II.

The TEL power plant is a 330MW mine mouth lignite-fired power project being built by Thar Energy, which is owned by Hub Power Company (Hubco), CMEC, and Fauji Fertilizer Company (FFC). The power plant is expected to be operational by March 2021.

ThalNova is a similar 330MW power plant being developed in the same block.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 21, 2018 at 8:42am: PTI Government unhappy, but Pakistan to stay with coal

https://www.eco-business.com/news/government-unhappy-but-pakistan-t...

Out of the 21 energy projects to be completed on a fast track (by 2019) with a cumulative capacity of 10,400 MW, nine are coal power plants, seven wind power plants, three hydropower, and two are HVDC transmission line projects.

Nearly USD 35 billion of the USD 60 billion worth of loans for producing energy from the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will be used to build new power stations, mainly coal-fired.

The projects completed include two mega coal power plants of 1,320 MW each, one in Punjab’s Sahiwal (commercially operating since May 2017) and the other in Karachi’s Port Qasim (Commercially operating since April 2018) using imported bituminous coal with modern supercritical coal-fired units. According to news reports, the country’s National Accountability Bureau has initiated an alleged corruption probe into both the costly projects.

Another one under completion is in the Thar desert in Sindh, about 400 kilometres from the port city of Karachi. It includes mining and setting up two 330 MW power plants at a cost of USD 2 billion. Once completed, it will be the first large power generation project using local coal.

The Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company has finally reached the coal seam in the desert. According to the company’s chief executive officer, Shamsuddin Shaikh, by October the company would have dug down to 162 metres to be able to dig up “useful” lignite coal. At the same time work at the first of the two power plants is 85 per cent complete and commissioning will begin by November-December this year when it will start supplying power to the national grid on an experimental basis. Once the first plant is fired, it will gobble up 3.8 million tons of coal each year.

Other projects in the pipeline include three 1,320 MW coal power plants. The ones at Rahim Yar Khan (in Punjab), and Hub (in Balochistan) to be completed between December 2018 and August 2019 respectively, will use imported coal. The third one, at Thar Block VI (in Sindh), will use indigenous lignite coal.

That does not mean that Pakistan is going to be completely coal-driven. Vaqar Zakaria, managing director of environmental consultancy firm Hagler Bailly Pakistan, put the figure to “just about 10 per cent of current power generation” which is from imported coal. However, he pointed out that coal-based power generation will increase to about 30 per cent of the country’s capacity requirement in the next three years once plants on Thar coal come online, and those at Hub and Jamshoro expand on imported coal.

Zakaria pointed out that the main argument in favour of Thar coal was the “lower reliance on imported fuel”, and to meet the “demand particularly when hydropower drops in winter” although the capital cost was high as the mines also have to be developed. However, he predicted the country will “see a slowdown in capacity addition in Thar in future”.

But projects relying on imported coal were questionable, especially those that are being carried out now, said Zakaria. “The earlier ones were justified [by the government] on the basis of load shedding and early induction of power to fill the demand-supply gap like the one at Port Qasim and Sahiwal plants that are already online; but the ones at Hub and Jamshoro cannot be justified on that basis. It is hard to understand why a project on imported coal was added so late in the game,” he said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 30, 2019 at 7:55am: #GE helps CPHGC in Hub #Pakistan achieve major #power plant milestone 3 months early. New #coal-fired plant will provide 1,320 megawatts (MW) to help Pakistan address its growing #energy needs and build energy independence https://www.powermag.com/press-releases/ge-helps-cphgc-in-pakistan-...

The first of two supercritical turbines from GE Steam Power has successfully synchronized to Pakistan’s national grid at China Power Hub Generation Company’s (CPHGC) new power plant three months ahead of schedule.

The 1,320 MW plant is located 25 kilometers southwest of the town of Hub, in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, and is a joint-venture project between China Power International Holding Limited (CPIH) and Pakistan’s Hub Power Company (HUBCO).

This important milestone was met just 27 months after the project first received go-ahead. Under an agreement signed in 2016, GE is supplying the core power generation equipment for the project, which comprises two units each of supercritical boilers, steam turbine and generator sets. The project’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors are Northwest Electric Power Design Institute Co. Ltd. (NWEPDI) and Tianjin Electric Power Construction Company (TEPC).

“This is a world-class example of GE’s global engineering, manufacturing and execution teams working closely together along with our customers to beat an already ambitious delivery schedule,” said Andreas Lusch, President & CEO of GE Steam Power. “Reaching this key milestone early required a very high degree of technical, engineering and production coordination between our factories in Wuhan and Beijing, China and Wroclaw, Poland with the highest commitment to quality and on-time delivery for our customers.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 3, 2019 at 8:34pm: Coal Power in Pakistan.... Source: Wikipedia

Pakistan has an installed electricity generation capacity of 33,836 MW in 2018.[4] Furnace oil (16 percent), hydel (27 percent), Natural gas (12 percent), LNG (26 percent), Coal (9 percent), Renewable (Solar & Wind 5 percent) and nuclear (5 per cent) are the principal sources.

In Service
Station Location Capacity (MW) Status
Lakhra Power Plant Jamshoro, Sindh 150 Operational.
Sitara Chemical Industries Ltd Faisalabad, Punjab 40 Operational since 2016.
Fauji Fertilizer Power Plant Karachi, Sindh 118 Operational since 2017.
Sahiwal Coal Power Project Sahiwal, Punjab 1320 Operational since 2017.
Maple Leaf Power Ltd Mianwali, Punjab 40 Operational since 2017.
Port Qasim Coal Power Project Karachi, Sindh 1320 Operational since 2017.
DG Cement Coal Power Project DG Khan, Punjab 30 Operational since 2017.
Hub Coal Power Project Hub, Balochistan 1320 Operational since 2018.
Engro Powergen Thar Pvt Ltd Tharparkar, Sindh 660 Operational since 2019.
Under Construction and Proposed
Station Location Capacity (MW) Notes
Thar Energy Ltd Tharparkar, Sindh 330 Under construction. To be operational by Mar 2021.[9]
Lucky Electric Power Karachi, Sindh 660 Under construction. To be operational by Mar 2021.[10]
ThalNova Power Pvt Ltd Tharparkar, Sindh 330 Under construction. To be operational by Jun 2021.[11]
Siddiqsons Energy Ltd Tharparkar, Sindh 330 Under construction. To be operational by Jun 2021.[10]
Gwadar Coal Power Project Gwadar, Balochistan 300 LOI issued.[12][12]
K-Electric Coal Power Project Karachi, Sindh 700 LOI issued.[13]

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