Thar coal fields have estimated lignite reserves of 175 billion tons equivalent to total oil reserves of Iran and Saudi Arabia combined and can be utilised to produce 100,000MW of power for 200 years, said Aliuddin Ansari CEO Engro Corporation.
Talking to newsman here on Tuesday he said that energy crisis had disturbed economies across the world and only those countries were not facing crisis, which were already prepared to face this challenge. However, Pakistan did not make planning for this crisis, resulted in huge difficulties on economic side. Now, Thar coal reserves are a hope to overcome the current energy crisis, which is directly hurting the economic growth of Pakistan, he added.
Across the world some 50 percent of power is being generated through coal, while in case of Pakistan, we have billion of tons coal reserve but not being utilised due to unavailability of infrastructure, CEO said. He said that primary objective of Thar coal development is to provide affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity to consumers using indigenous resource and to reduce reliance on imported oil for power generation. "Reliance on indigenous fuel will help save billions of dollars in foreign exchange which are currently being spent on import of expensive Refined Furnace Oil", he added.
Thar coal based power tariff will be much lower than Refined Furnace Oil based power tariff and use of coal will directly benefited for economy as well as for consumers, which can get electricity at much cheaper rate than what they are paying right now, he mentioned.
"Currently, Pakistan's effective power generation capacity stands at 14,000MW and with current growth rate, Pakistan will need 26,000 MW by 2020 out of which around 10,000 MW can be easily produced from Thar Coal with some development", Ansari said. Engro has also acquired coal block in Thar and an international certification has proof that some 2 billion tons of coal reserves are available in Engro Block II, he explained.
Ansari said that power Sector in Pakistan is facing growing problems due to high cost of power generation, inefficiencies, low payment recovery and inability of GOP to make payments to power producers which has led to a serious "circular debt" issue which is becoming a hurdle for future investments in the energy sector.
Followed by current circular debt and country's financial situation coupled with Engro's own financial limitations as a result of the gas curtailment to its $1.1 billion world largest single chain urea plant, he added. Therefore, a continuous and diligent effort by government is required to ensure timely completion of all Infrastructure Projects in Thar coal fields to support the investors and energy sector, he said.
Concurrently, government is actively working to provide the required infrastructure which includes fresh water supply, effluent disposal scheme, road network and a Transmission Line from Thar to Matiari to evacuate power from Thar Block-Il, Ansari mentioned. CEO Engro said that development of Thar will result in immense socio-economic benefits for the region, job creation for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour and increase per capita income of people living in Thar region.
He appreciated the government approach and said that despite curtailment in the development budgets, Thar Coal development related projects were exempted from these cuts to ensure timely completion of these projects and a total of Rs 10 billion has been allocated for the development of Infrastructure Projects by government of Sindh in financial year 2012-13.