In a recent development China has agreed to bring the strategic project of turning Thar coal into diesel and gas under the CPEC umbrella. It will first provide financing for feasibility study prior to launching the project.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar while talking to the media said “The authorities from China in Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) have given their willingness to provide funding for the feasibility study under CPEC financing mechanism for the project under which Thar coal will be converted into diesel and gas.”
He mentioned that the Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group, a subsidiary of China’s biggest coal producer, the Shenhua Group, has already successfully installed the project to convert coal into oil in the northwestern Chinese region of Ningxia, the biggest plant of its kind in the world.
The coal-to-liquid (CTL) project, which has an annual production capacity of 4 million tons of oil, was built by the Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group, a subsidiary of China’s biggest coal producer, the Shenhua Group.
Thar coalfield in Sindh province is bestowed with 185 billion tons of lignite coal, which can fuel power generation of over 100,000 megawatts for more than two centuries. Pakistan needs to increase share of coal in country’s energy mix to at least 19 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2050. In 1992, Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) discovered coal deposits worth 175-185 billion tons of lignite in Thar.
