Chinese firm to set up four energy projects

ISLAMABAD: A Chinese energy investment company has identified four energy projects in Pakistan for immediate investment, but informed the government that the start-up of these projects would depend on tariff approval from Nepra. As a follow-up to the recent visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to China, the Vice President of China Power Investment Corporation, Zhiyig Wang, is in Islamabad as head of a 15-member delegation, and has started deliberations with officials of Ministry of Water and Power, Board of Investment (BoI) and the Planning Commission. During his meeting with BoI Chairman Mohammad Zubair on Tuesday, Wang said the China Power Corporation is ready to invest in four power projects. Explaining the proposed projects, he said the capacity of two coal-based power projects, to be set up in Thar, would be 900MW each with a total investment of $2.12 billion and would require 10 million tonnes coal a year. The projects would depend on the mining in Thar as the company intends to start coal production by 2015 and power generation by 2015-16. He said the corporation would set up a 660MW power plant in Lahore and would engage the Punjab government for development, investment, construction, operation and management of the power plant. The fourth project would be 300MW solar power project based in Bahawalpur. In addition, the corporation has also planned a 500MW to 1000MW wind energy project and site for this project would be decided by the federal government. The Chinese corporation is one of the five largest state-owned electricity producers in the country and integrating industries of coal, power, aluminium railway and port. It supplies 10 per cent of the power supply to the country and installed 80,074MW by the end of 2012. Zubair said, “Pakistan welcomes investors to make their businesses a success, and BoI is mandated to play an important role in administrating and implementing the government’s FDI policy.”