APD | CPEC’s Thar coal power project starts production in Pakistan

By APD writer Muhammad Sohail

ISLAMABAD, March 19 (APD) -- Engro Powergen Thar Limited's (EPTL) lignite coal power plant, a project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, in Thar region of Pakistan has started pumping 330MW of electricity generated by domestic coal into the national grid, a statement said on Tuesday.

The first of two 330MW units of the 660MW project located in Thar Block II was tested and energized on Monday, a press release issued by the company stated.

The Thar Engro Coal Power Project (Thar-ll) is a coal-fired power plant under construction in Tharparkar District, in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province.

The project is a joint venture of Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company and China Machinery Engineering Corporation.

Chief of the company Ahsan Zafar Syed said that the company is running the plant on 100 percent local coal.

The second 330MW unit will be connected to the national grid in April, he added.

Together, the mining and power projects managed by Engro are expected to rack up a total of 1.6 billion U.S. dollars in foreign exchange savings a year since power will be produced using indigenous coal, the press release stated.

Construction on the country's first 660MW power plant, an early harvest China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, commenced in April 2016.

The EPTL power plant will utilize 3.8MTPA of coal supplied by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) as both projects achieve their commercial operations date by June 2019.

(ASIA PACIFC DAILY)