The Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL), a project managed by Lahore-based Associated Group, when completed by year-end, will produce 500 tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and 100 tonnes of Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) per day, raising the total national production by 50 percent that will help meet energy requirements of the country.
The JJVL is expected to be commissioned for production by December-end, while President General Pervez Musharraf or Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will formally inaugurate the project in early January.
The plant, in which the Associated Group has the majority share holding, will not only narrow the existing gap between demand and supply of LPG, which shoots up significantly in winter season, but also provide job opportunities to local people, said JJVL Project Manager Farooq Ahmed, while briefing a group of Lahore-based journalists, who visited the site of the plant.
Farooq Ahmed said the plant will meet the energy requirements of over 500,000 homes across the country, apart from providing direct or indirect employment to over 5,000 persons through setting up new filling plants and distribution outlets, adding the existing gap in demand and supply is 400-500 tonnes, which mounts to 800-900 tonnes in winter, causing to miseries of people depending on LPG.
At present, the total LPG production in the country is around 1,000 tonnes per day with OGDCL and Parco being as major producers, he said.
"Even with addition of 500 tonnes of LPG though commissioning of the JJVL, there still remains a gap of 300 tonnes in demand and supply in winter, and to bridge this gap, the LPG marketing companies will have to go for import by spending heavy amounts of foreign exchange", said Farooq Ahmed.
The JJVL has recently started the import of LPG to develop the Pak market, and has imported about 400 tonnes of LPG in November. During the months of December and January 2005, another 6,000 tonnes of LPG are expected to be imported, he added.
Spreading over an area of 35-acre of land and locating nearby the SSGC liquid handling facility at Jamshoro, the JJVL is the largest processing plant in public and private sector and a rare example of state-of-the-art technology, Farooq Ahmed, adding the plant, which will have its own power generating system to be run on natural gas, will process 200 mmcfd gas per day from the system of the SSGC and extract propane, butane and gas condensate.
The JJVL project manager said the most distinct feature of this state-of-the-art gas processing plant is that it has been designed on Ortloff technology, which is designed to recover 99 percent of propane, while all other plants in the country recover only 30-35 percent.
The visiting journalists were told that the plant was fully automated requiring minimum manpower to run it.
According to Farooq Ahmed it needs only 10 persons in each shift to man it.
Providing background information about the JJVL, he said originally, the work on the project commenced in 1988, when gas was discovered from Badin district, but due to various reasons it delayed and could not be implemented.
Later, the implementation agreement was signed in August 2003 and financial close was achieved in January 2004, he said, adding the project implementation started in March last, while first consignment of equipment was received in August 2004.
The Hanover Compression, a UK-based US company is the engineering, procurement, construction and commission (EPCC) contractor, he said, adding the project is being completed at a cost of $40 million, while finance facility has been provided by a consortium of 14 banks led by National Bank of Pakistan (NBP).
Farooq Ahmed said in future, the Associated Group also intends to expand this plant and set up such plants at wells abandoned by major oil and gas producing companies like OGDC considering them uneconomical, adding the prospective wells where such plants could be established are Golachi, Sinjoro, Pars and Tando Allayar fields.
About the distribution of LPG produced by the JJVL, he said a dozen companies, including the PSO have contacted the JJVL administration for distributorship, however, it has yet to decide it, adding: "We are also considering making a subsidiary of the JJVL to do this job."
The Investment in production and distribution is expected to cross the figure of Rs 4 billion, he said.
To a question about the environmental hazards of the plant, he said it was so located that hardly any population will be affected by it. About social plans in the area, he said besides providing job opportunities they have also planned to set up a dispensary and a school in the vicinity. Recently, they have arranged a free eye camp in the area, which benefited the public at large, he added.