Punjab to establish 1,200MW gas power plant

[Kabira]

For energy here and now, one option could be link Pak Grid to India, which is capable of generating surplus power using its unutilised coal based thermal generation. You just have to put an HVDC link from Indian Punjab to Pak Punjab, or from Gujarat to Sind- can be implemented in 2-3 years, almost the same time as it takes to set up a gas based unit.

Regards

Thanks bro but no thanks.

 

[SoulSpokesman]

I know what you are thinking of, Tesky. But look at it this way, Indians will earn money by selling power, there is no way they can blackmail Pak by threatening to cut off supllies. No one will be doing any charity or favour to the other.

Regards

 

[Kabira]

I know what you are thinking of, Tesky. But look at it this way, Indians will earn money by selling power, there is no way they can blackmail Pak by threatening to cut off supllies. No one will be doing any charity or favour to the other.

Regards

Yes but it will be expensive power at the end of the day. Pakistan have backed away from importing more electricity from Iran for Gwadar and instead is building 330MW coal power plant there.

 

[SoulSpokesman]

Tesky,

It should be possible to produce coal using local coal at around INR 3.50/unit, along with transmission cost it could work out to around Rs. 5.0 max or 8 cents. If it makes sense for Pak to procure at that rate, it may well be a good idea.

Regards

 

[The Unmistakable]

For energy here and now, one option could be link Pak Grid to India, which is capable of generating surplus power using its unutilised coal based thermal generation. You just have to put an HVDC link from Indian Punjab to Pak Punjab, or from Gujarat to Sind- can be implemented in 2-3 years, almost the same time as it takes to set up a gas based unit.

Regards

Then why there are still blackouts in India when the other states have surplus power? Why don't you feed the other states?

 

[EpiiC]

Then why there are still blackouts in India when the other states have surplus power? Why don't you feed the other states?

India is short on energy too, but situation in Pakistan is much worse mate......

 

[niaz]

Tesky,

It should be possible to produce coal using local coal at around INR 3.50/unit, along with transmission cost it could work out to around Rs. 5.0 max or 8 cents. If it makes sense for Pak to procure at that rate, it may well be a good idea.

Regards

As posted by Hon Tesky, Power Tariff from Thar coal is set at Pk Rs 7.32 per KWH. After the coal production from each block crosses the critical 15 million ton per annum, thru economy of scale the tariff should come down close to Pk Rupees 5/KWH which is roughly equal to IRs 3.50 indicated in your post. Hence don't see big cost savings.

 

[SoulSpokesman]

Unmistakable,

Then why there are still blackouts in India when the other states have surplus power? Why don't you feed the other states?

Problem is not with availability of power per se. Problem is that discoms are badly run and bankrupt. They cant afford to pay for the power which they are often forced to sell at a loss; or the power they purchase gets stolen; or because they dont have the money to set up last mile connectivity infra (lines, transformers etc) to users.

Besides, many Indians are simply too poor to pay for the power.

Regards

 

[xyxmt]

Vikas ... these stupids do not have gas we are already in shortage and again a gas power plant ... they are nuts and work for commission only ...

We are sitting on largest cold reserves on sindh rather than capitalising on those they installed imported coal base power plant ... rather than working on dam they are importing gas as they will get commission from the selling country ...

I am glad you are not the power minister

 

[The Accountant]

I am glad you are not the power minister

Thanks for showing your opinion but unfortunately policies of previous power minister are also not working ... load shedding is still there and cost of production is still very high .. infact highest in the region ... our energy incentive business are not competitive in the market ... despite if having sufficient ferrilizer capacity we have to shut down our fertilizer and steel plants due to shortage of gas still rather than shifting our energy demand on other sources our reliance is increasing on gas ... someboddy is here is also telling me that cost of transportation of coal is higher due to low BTU value of coal but i dont understand how it is feasible to transport coal from australia while not feasible from one peovince to other .. per BTU transport cost of australia and thar can be compared even with the half of the burning capacity ? ... probably mathematics has changed by now ...

Regarding delay in return of coal project ... the projects which started commercial minning in 2016 will start initial production in 2019 ... last i heard that NS was claiming that installation of coal power plant in 2 years was some remarkable achievement ... so with a differnece of just one year you want to keep outflow of resources from your country to others whereas keeping the same in your country could of provided the job to local people nd boast the local economy ...

As posted by Hon Tesky, Power Tariff from Thar coal is set at Pk Rs 7.32 per KWH. After the coal production from each block crosses the critical 15 million ton per annum, thru economy of scale the tariff should come down close to Pk Rupees 5/KWH which is roughly equal to IRs 3.50 indicated in your post. Hence don't see big cost savings.

You are missing the point here ... with investment in local the resources will remain within the local economy ... local business local companies and local people will be beneficiary so even a slightly higher cost is even beneficial ... furthermore it is much much lower than what we are paying for crude oil which is near about PKR 16 per KWH ...

And even for gas it averages around somewhere PkR 7 per KWH depending on the quality of gas from particular well ..

Last but not the least it is much lower than what an average end consumer is paying my bill averages around pkr 17 to 18 KWH excluding taxes and rates of commercial users are even higher ...

Honourable Sir,

I would humbly request you to read all of my rather large post before you start banging your head against the wall.

Problem is that most of my compatriots form opinions based upon what they read in the press written by journalist’s majority of who have little or no knowledge about energy.

I don’t claim to be an expert but I have done a study for the optimum fuel use for the 'Jamaica Power' back in the 1990’s. Most Consultancy companies have a list of experts in their field. Whenever they land a Consultancy job, jobs requiring specialized knowledge are subcontracted to the experts. I have been making a living doing piecemeal work for these large companies for the last 5 years;particularly in the field of petroleum refining, I certainly know as much as most of the international consultants. However this requires that I should keep myself up to date by surfing the internet and reading the industry journals accessible to me thru the library of American Institute of chemical Engineers of which I am a senior member.

I can therefore claim to know a little more about power generation than majority of the fellow members. This not because I am more intelligent but simply because I have a lot more info available with me. For example I came across the following article a few years ago on Thar coal.


"Chasing a pipe dream: Three reasons why Thar coal will not save Pakistan



By Fouad Khan

Published: January 23, 2012

To borrow and contort a famous turn of phrase from Matt Taibi’s now legendary piece of investigative journalism about Goldman Sachs, “the first thing you need to know about [global energy conglomerates] is that [they are] everywhere. The world’s most powerful [industry] is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of [earth], relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like [fossil fuels].”

That is the image you need to wrap your minds around if you want to understand why Thar coal is not the lamp that will summon the jinn, to fix all of Pakistan’s energy and economic problems if only rubbed the right way by that right clean, patriotic leadership of lore. You need to envision this monster squid sticking its tentacles down every hole that smells even remotely of juice and then you need to ask yourself, doesn’t the brandished juiciness of Thar’s coal reserves sound succulent enough for that behemoth to have stuck its arms deep into it by now. After all, it’s already here, not even miles away from Thar in gas fields from Bhit to Qadirpur, quietly sucking up fossil fuels from in numerous holes. If BP, Eni, MOL and others can find a way to drill, build and operate in Sindh, why haven’t Peabody Energy got a whiff of all that solid black gold buried underground yet and come looking for it. The answer to that question, unfortunately for Pakistan, is that, unlike the gas and the oil, and the copper to the west in Balochistan, the coal simply isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth the trouble, worth the bureaucratic hassles, worth braving the security risks, worth going half-way around the world for. It isn’t worth it in terms of bare dollar amounts, in terms of ecological economics or in terms of energy return on energy input. Now, don’t make a mistake here. There’s significant amount of energy to be had from Thar’s coal reserves, but in the national context. Not in the global context. If someone tells you Thar’s coal reserves are the largest, or the second largest, or even in the top ten in the world, ask them for their sources. They are wrong.

Why the numbers don’t add up

According to the World Energy Council, Pakistan has a little more than 2,000 million tons of proven recoverable coal reserves. That number is supported by British Petroleum’s similar estimates and contrasts with the Sindh Government’s total predicted estimates of about 2,357 million tons (this number does not include ‘indicated’ and ‘inferred’ reserves). This compared with Germany’s lignite reserves of about 40,600 million tons and India’s reserves of about 4,500 million tons seems small. Pakistan’s coal reserves are in effect only the 134th largest coal reserves in the world. But if you want to know what a resource is really worth, you need to rely on the word of someone who’s willing to pay for it. The last company that was willing to invest in Thar’s coal reserves, the Shenhua Group China, estimated that they could produce about 3.5 million tons of coal per year from the mines, which they translated into 600 MW of power generation. Pakistan’s energy shortage is now in the thousands of megawatt per day.

It is important to measure the potential of Thar coal in terms of megawatts of power per day because the kind of coal that Thar has, is of little use besides conversion to electricity onsite. Lignite, which is the least energy intensive form of coal, according to some definitions, is not coal at all. In fact, it is considered a dirty energy source lying somewhere on the spectrum between coal and peat with carbon content between 25% to 35%. The fixed carbon content of Thar coal is less than 22%. The low carbon content translates into low energy generation capacity, which means that if energy is invested into transporting the lignite from source to point of consumption, the net energy output of the mining, extraction, transportation and conversion process becomes less than zero; you end up investing more energy making energy out of coal than you get out of it in terms of megawatts. In order to get any energy out of lignite, it has to be converted into electricity almost entirely onsite; where it is being mined. Which brings us to the first reason why Thar coal will not save Pakistan.

There isn’t enough water

The methodology of getting lignite out of ground is called strip mining. You basically dig a big hole in the ground and the more coal you get out, the bigger the hole gets. Strip mining requires extensive amounts of water depending on the methodology used with estimates varying from 10 to 150 gallons of water for one ton of coal mined. Assuming minimum water requirement, mining 3.5 million tons of coal per year would require 35 million gallons of water per year or roughly about 100,000 gallons of water per day. Power production has further extensive water requirements. Sindh government is assuring investors an eventual water supply of about 300,000 gallons of water per day. Where is this water going to come from? Pakistan is a “water stressed” country on the verge of “water scarcity”, with the people of Thar being the most deprived in a nation of water deprived people. Yes, we are an energy starved nation, but more so than that we are a thirsty nation, who’ve let one of the richest water resource regimes in the world go to waste through lack of development and irresponsible usage. Make no mistake about it, the energy gained through Thar coal will come at a cost of water loss to the people who least can afford it. What complicates the matter even more is the fact that mining for coal in an area where the primary source of drinking water is subsurface aquifer, can end up contaminating the water supply of a very vulnerable population. Especially when, as in Thar, there are connected aquifers, above, within and below the coal zone.

Magic bullets don’t work

The impracticality of the water situation has led some in Pakistan’s scientific elite to consider unproven technologies. Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) is one such technology.

Unfortunately though, the risk of aquifer contamination is highest in UCG of all the techniques of extracting energy from underground coal. UCG is an experimental methodology where coal is not mined but sparked underground and the gas generated through this combustion is collected through wells. While this methodology does not have the high surface footprint and risks of strip mining, it offers extensive water contamination opportunities as the gas generated through combustion underground is hard to control. It can never be guaranteed to not mix with the subsurface water. But that’s the least of the problems with UCG. The experimental nature of UCG means that there are very few places in the world where this technology has been successfully implemented. No commercial UCG production wells exist and there are very few experts; individuals or companies who are competent enough to execute UCG projects flawlessly. UCG projects are economically feasible only if the coal reserves cannot be reached through traditional means and that is not the case here. Also, UCG is only recommended in coal beds which are isolated from aquifers. That is not the case in Thar either. So let’s recap; UCG is an experimental methodology that people at the helm of the UCG project in Thar have no expertise or experience in, there is no need to implement UCG in Thar and the technology if implemented will most certainly contaminate the only water source of a very vulnerable population.

The reason some of the claims of the UCG project leadership about potential of the project sound too good to be true, is because they are. The key to remember here is this; magic bullets don’t work. And miracle cures, more often than not, turn out to be nothing more than snake oil.

Thar coal is not a sustainable energy source

There is a litany of environmental problems associated with coal mining and electricity generation, with coal being the “dirtiest” of all fossil fuel sources, but environmental problems are not the real reason why Thar coal will not save Pakistan.

Thar coal cannot solve our energy problems, balance our budget, put food on every deprived Sindhi household’s table or lift Pakistan out of poverty, because coal is a fossil fuel and a finite resource. To understand the significance of this statement, think about this. When Sui gas was discovered in 1952 it was estimated that this energy source will last us for at least a hundred years. We were all set for three generations. For a hundred years we knew our stoves will stay warm, literally. Then, growth happened. Lots of it. Suddenly, unbelievable as it may have seemed once, we’d run out of gas. Gas was gone.

In terms of net energy, Thar’s reserves are a fraction of the embarrassment of riches that was found in Sui six decades ago. At current growth rates, they will last us no longer than twenty five years. What then?

This is not to say that we shouldn’t exploit Thar’s energy potential. By all means, we need to tap that resource as soon as possible — giving due consideration to environmental concerns of course — and exploit as much of it as we can without hindering on the water rights of the locals. But we must not forget that despite being a potential medium term respite, Thar coal is no solution to Pakistan’s long term energy problems. Pakistan has extensive wind and hydel renewable potential. Small dams along the stretch of Indus and the sprouting of wind farms along our beautiful jagged coast are the only truly sustainable options that can secure Pakistan’s energy future.

The writer is an energy, environment and water resources consultant based in Hungary.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23rd, 2012."


https://tribune.com.pk/story/325560...reasons-why-thar-coal-will-not-save-pakistan/

The figures quoted about the total amount of Thar lignite in place is incorrect.I think Fouad Khan is using the deposits in one block as the total deposits because:

“Block-II of Thar contained two billion tons of lignite reserves, out of which 1.57 billion tons were exploitable, the official disclosed. The SECMC had established a subsidiary — the Thar Power Company — to set up a 600 megawatt power plant utilising coal from Thar block-I.”

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/85967-Thar-coal-fields-Block-II-achieves-financial-close

However the limitation of water is a fact and a major impediment in the full exploitation of Thar coal.

“ Ministry of Water and Power, in its comments stated that three blocks of Thar-coal are included in the CPEC and in order to provide economies of scale, each block must achieve a capacity of more than 15-20 million tons per annum which means generation of around 7,500-9,000 MW cumulatively. At present, tariff on Thar coal is available to projects of around 3,600 MWs.”

http://fp.brecorder.com/2017/03/20170328158738/


Based upon the above even one block would need at least half a million gallons of water per day to dig up the coal alone. Requirement for the steam generation is addition to that. In my opinion Thar coal fired power plants would be forced to use ‘Dry Cooling’ that is, employing air cooled condensers for cooling instead of water.

I stand by my assertion that it would be very long time before we can rely on Thar coal alone. Even after reading the post if you would still like to hit your head against the wall, please go ahead I promise not to stand in your way.

You claim to be some hot shot engineer and yet you are posting an article of local newspaper ... on one side you are claiming that world power players controls everything and on the other hand you are qutoing local newspaper cuttings ignoring the fact that most of these cuttings are propaganda ...

If you are putting your credentials let me put mine ..

I am member of institute of chartered accountant of pakistan (ICAP) and institute of chartered accountants of englands and wales (ICAEW) ... i have worked with goldman sachs as an external consultant for a project in Pakistan .. have worked for supreme court of Pakistan for some of the biggest investigations in history of Pakistan and has worked with many of the gov officials as consultant capacity ... so kindly if you are commenting on opinion of others donot consider others as some college boy ...

We are professionals so i humbly agree to diagree ...

My only point is we should take the hard decision for long term benefits ... we should develop and rely on our local resources just like india and china did ... this culture of import gives us short term benefit but eating us from inside ... but like i said lets agree to disagree ...

And i agree that i should have respected your opinion too rather than bashing my head against the wall lolz ...

 

[Chak Bamu]

Honorable Mr. Niaz, whose posts I have been reading for more than a decade, brings an expert angle on energy related matters. He has spent his life in his field and it shows in the wonderful quality of his posts. Each time I read something written by him, I learn something new.

I am thoroughly enjoying seeing him try to dissuade a brainwashed kid from attempting intellectual suicide.

@The Accountant keep digging kid, soon you shall be floating in the southern Atlantic. You are arguing with an expert whose opinions are worth something. Your opinions come straight from Youthia brigade.

When I was moderating, I used to keep the Economy section clean and tidy. Now it looks much like the politics section.

 

[The Accountant]

Honorable Mr. Niaz, whose posts I have been reading for more than a decade, brings an expert angle on energy related matters. He has spent his life in his field and it shows in the wonderful quality of his posts. Each time I read something written by him, I learn something new.

I am thoroughly enjoying seeing him try to dissuade a brainwashed kid from attempting intellectual suicide.

@The Accountant keep digging kid, soon you shall be floating in the southern Atlantic. You are arguing with an expert whose opinions are worth something. Your opinions come straight from Youthia brigade.

When I was moderating, I used to keep the Economy section clean and tidy. Now it looks much like the politics section.

Good that you are not moderting otherwise stubborn people like you will take over Pakistan nowhere ... despite of seeing all the existing policies has failed miserably you old brigrade is not learning and when someone is trying to show you mirror you keep labeled them inexperienced ...

With all due respects you senior generation is the reason of decline in Pakistan in last three decades ... first start respecting others before starting useless ranting and stop quoting me as yo have some personal grudge with me ...

 

[SoulSpokesman]

Accountant sb,

If I have to compare your posts with Niaz sb. Now I dont know how much you know about energy economics but Niaz sb certainly does. That aside, the sheer difference in quality of posts on very basic things- like grammar and spelling for instance- suggests that I take Niaz sb more seriously than you.

Regards

 

[The Accountant]

Thats because i am posting from mobile mostly while travelling ... dont have time to post in a proper manner ... anyways you are free to make your opinion ...

Just my last comment on this thread clarifying what i am trying to say in a layman language ...

If you have someone unemployed in your home who could provide you services which are 90% efficient in comparision from outside world and will start generating after delay of a day in comparision to off the shelf services available from outside market i will prefer services to be procured from home as resources will remain within the home and overall income of the home will increase ... similarly in terms of pure energy economics mr. Niaz is perfectly all right to generate from most economic and readily available source but due to this short term decisions our overall economy is in trouble ... our exports are 15 billion vs imports of 38 billion in last year and still no one is taking a note of it and investing on import oriented sector for the next 30 years to continue ?

Local coal based production cost is still much lower than average cost of production of electricity currently we have in Pakistan ... if you want exact values give me sometime and i will produce the same for you ...

I am not an energy economist but i am sure an economist and i know for sure that current import based energy in Pakistan is forcing us to take loans every now and then ...

Irony is out of 15 billion earned from export we pay back 6.5 billion in terms of energy imports and this ratio is further increasing ...

So tell me what will you do ? Will you prefer to change your energy generation mix by compromising energy deficiency for a year or more or you will enter another commitment to import fuel for 30 more years (typical life if a power plant ) ?

Decision is yours ...

Accountant sb,

If I have to compare your posts with Niaz sb. Now I dont know how much you know about energy economics but Niaz sb certainly does. That aside, the sheer difference in quality of posts on very basic things- like grammar and spelling for instance- suggests that I take Niaz sb more seriously than you.

Regards

 

[MULUBJA]

Very bad move. Some people do not know how costly it will be for pakistan. GO for solar instead and you shall be winner.