Category: News & Announcement

Pakistan International Airlines has written to foreign missions and global regulatory and safety bodies, assuring them it has grounded all 141 pilots suspected of obtaining licenses through unfair means, the carrier’s spokesman said on Saturday. The move looks to assuage safety concerns after Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said on Friday that the government had asked various commercial airlines, flying clubs and charter companies to ground a total of 262 pilots until investigations into their qualifications are completed. The action was prompted by a preliminary report on the crash of a PIA aircraft in…

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The annual capacity payment for not utilising surplus power plants is projected to soar to an unsustainable level of Rs1.5 trillion over the next two years as Pakistan continues to add more dirty and expensive capacity, mostly under the Thar coal and CPEC projects. “Capacity payment to power generators can reach to an unsustainable level of Rs1.5 trillion ($9 billion) over the next two years,” Australia-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis official Simon Nicholas said at the launch of a study titled “Thar Coal: Locking Pakistan into Unsustainable…

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China is now holding most of the cards in the oil price game as far as Riyadh and Moscow are concerned–and Beijing is right where it wants to be. The other two have overplayed their hands. And the U.S. has–once again–been caught napping. There’s a ton of geopolitical leverage to be had for China. The king of ‘soft power’, can simply turn the import taps off to make things extremely uncomfortable for Saudi Arabia and Russia, both vying for China oil sales and both with budgets that depend upon this…

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According to a report by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Pakistan is faced with the increasing financial burden of power capacity payments and overcapacity risk at a time when renewables are the cheapest source of energy available. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Pakistan’s electricity demand was decreasing. Two more Chinese-financed coal-fired plants have reached financial close so far in 2020, with more in more in the pipeline intended to meet the overestimated demand growth projections.Report author Simon Nicholas at the IEEFA says the government needs to…

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ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory (Nepra) has decided to expose all those power Distribution Companies (Discos) which are unleashing load shedding despite receiving due allocated quota of electricity. On Friday, the regulator took serious notice of various media reports regarding unscheduled load shedding of up to 12 hours by all the Discos, due to which the public is suffering heavily in this current wave of heat, especially in the areas under lockdown due to COVID-19. According to Nepra, Discos under the relevant provisions of their licences are obligated to…

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Pakistan’s Energas is set to start LNG import from July 2020. In an interview with Bloomberg, Energas CEO Anser Ahmed Khan revealed that the group is in talks with the government for a marketing license in order to start the import of LNG in July. According to available details, Energas wants to use Pakistan government’s idle capacity until the construction of its LNG terminal, which is supported by Exxon Mobil. The government has underutilized the second LNG terminal by 70% in the past three months due to lower demand but…

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June 26, 2020 (MLN): The approval from SECP for requested extension of 90 days for making Public Announcement of Offer by Shanghai Electric Company (Acquirer) to acquire 66.4 percent shares of K-Electric Limited will lapse as of June 26, 2020, on the basis that certain regulatory and other approvals for the Transaction remain outstanding. Arif Habib Limited, the Manager to the offer for this acquisition, made an announcement that as of the expiry date, June 26, 2020, the PoI stands withdrawn. However, in a notification to PSX, Shanghai Electric remain fully…

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The energy ministry on Friday dismissed K-Electric’s (KE) claims attributing prolonged power outages in Karachi to a shortage of furnace oil in the market, saying the power utility’s system constraints were a major hurdle in resolving the issue. It is unfortunate to note that KE didn’t invest in upgrading their systems due to which it is facing difficulties at a time of peak demand, a spokesperson for the energy ministry said in a statement. “The federal government is ready to extend all available support for the provision of uninterrupted power supply to…

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The government on Friday increased the prices of all petroleum products by up to nearly Rs26 to share the impact of rising international prices with the consumers. The price of petrol (motor spirit) has been raised by a whopping Rs25.58 to Rs100.10 per litre from the existing Rs74.52, an increase of 25.6 per cent, according to a Finance Division press release. The price of high-speed diesel (HSD) has been hiked to Rs101.46 per litre from the current price of Rs80.15, a jump of Rs21.31. The new price of kerosene oil…

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The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet on Thursday allowed the Power Division to proceed with the development of Kohala and Azad Pattan hydroelectric power projects in a bid to pave the way for attracting $3.7 billion in investment under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Work on these two power projects had come to a halt because of a row over different issues. The Kohala hydroelectric power project will be developed on Jhelum River in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and is being implemented by Kohala Hydropower Company Private…

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