ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar on Thursday visited Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) to get maiden briefing on power projects.
In a detailed presentation, Shah Jahan Mirza briefed the minister that PPIB has been instrumental in achieving historical breakthrough in the energy history whereby the country’s coal reserves at Thar are being developed having coal mining and power generation projects of which 660 MW Engro Power Project has already been completed and supplying electricity to the national grid while another three projects of 1320 MW are under construction.
Similarly, for generating eco–friendly and cheap electricity, two large size hydropower IPPs namely 720 MW Karot and 884 MW Suki Kinari are at advance stages of construction work which are likely to be completed during December 2021 and December 2022 respectively.
Pakistan’s largest private sector hydropower project namely 1124 MW Kohala along with 700 MW Azad Pattan under advance stages of achieving Financial Closing. Recently both these IPPs have successfully executed project agreements which are amongst one of the pre-requisites for achieving Financial Close.
Pakistan’s first private sector Matiari-Lahore HDVC Transmission Line project which is also a hallmark project of PPIB is being processed under the framework of CPEC and set to be functional by September 2021. It was briefed that PPIB is processing largest chunk of energy chapter under CPEC out of which four projects of 4620 MW have already been completed while remaining nine projects of more than 7000 MW are at different stages of processing, majority of which are under construction or about to enter construction activities.
Highlighting future plans, MD PPIB stated that PPIB is handling a diversified portfolio of 22 IPPs of more than 12000 out of which fourteen projects of 6175 MW are hydropower projects while six IPPs of 4290 MW are based on Thar coal.
It was apprised to the minister that PPIB is targeting to complete seven projects of more than 5500 MW till the end of next year in spite of Covid-19 situation worldwide, which can hamper the process.
These included two hydropower IPPs of more than 1600 MW, four Thar coal based IPPs of 2640 MW and one RLNG based project of 1263 MW.
The minister expressed his gratitude over thorough briefing extended by MD PPIB and lauded the efforts of PPIB for its past achievements and the current efforts being made for developing the power sector. The minister assured his full support and guidance to PPIB and urged it to work more diligently and keep providing expert facilitation to the investors so that they are able to invest in this sector more confidently.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021