Month: February 2021

Energy security: some suggestions

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Energy security appears to be the biggest challenge confronting the country since long. The following paragraphs are an attempt at a quick health check of Pakistan’s energy supply chain and recommending the way forward. Despite all of our cash flow issues and heavy debt, we have somehow ended up with a highly lethal energy mix which compels us to spend around $16 billion on fuel imports annually. The main reason is that during the past more than 40 years, instead of considering a long-term strategy and its execution, we have…

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Potential of coal gasification

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With dwindling gas resources and lack of discovery of new oil and gas resources, energy dependence will increase unless dedicated efforts are made to discover new resources and increase the utilisation of existing resources. Pakistan has one of the largest lignite (brown coal) resources, which can be termed almost limitless (185 billion tons). Despite this, coal imports have been increasing and are projected to increase to 20 million tons ($2 billion) in the current year. It is due to installation of power plants based on imported coal unnecessarily in the…

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Old guard oppose incentives for electric vehicles

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The neighbouring countries are treating hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plugged-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) in the same fashion. While creating a base for future autonomous connected vehicles and the related infrastructure, Pakistan should not be too off the mark if it wants to promote environment-friendly vehicles. This was the concluding remark by Indus Motor Company (IMC) CEO Ali Asghar Jamali in a recent interview with Dawn. Mr Jamali spoke about IMC’s focus on HEVs instead of EVs, cost difference between HEVs and EVs, infrastructure issues, policies, incentives…

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Pakistani ‘oil city’ masterplan for $10 billion Aramco refinery expected by year’s end

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GWADAR: The planning process for the country’s largest oil city — which will house a $10 billion Aramco Oil Refinery project — in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province is expected to conclude before the end of the year, Pakistani officials said this week.  The proposed mega oil city will be developed at an area of 80,000 acres in Gwadar District for the refining and processing of petroleum products mainly imported from the Gulf region for local and regional needs.   “The planning for the mega oil city which will host Aramco Refinery…

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Rs108b savings expected from power shift to solar

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The Punjab government has decided to shift government offices, schools, colleges, universities and health units across Punjab to solar power under the Green Energy Programme through which Rs108 billion will be saved annually. A comprehensive plan has been formulated to increase the use of solar energy in the light of the directives issued by Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. In the first phase of the programme, government offices and educational institutions in Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan and Sahiwal will be shifted to solar power while in the second phase, government offices…

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