Many MNCs keen to invest in Thar coal project
26 January, 2012
ISLAMABAD: Multinational companies of Britain, China, Russia, Australia and Ukraine have offered joint ventures in the Thar Coal Gasification Project for electricity and coal gas. The project can produce gas and electricity in huge quantities that will help overcome the energy shortfall. Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, renowned nuclear scientist and head of the project, in an exclusive interview with the Jang Group, said on Wednesday it is important that Pakistan first successfully completes its 100 MW power project at Thar. After that the government will be in a position to finalise the best conditions in national interest for the joint ventures offered by the multinational companies, he added. He said the project is about exploiting and utilising hidden national wealth, which requires initiative and huge investment. Nations have to invest in future and help themselves as none else will help them out. Dr Samar stated that the project is definitely commercially feasible but being the first of its type in Pakistan it needed careful scientific study. Creating doubts about its feasibility will not help. If such a scepticalapproach is accepted then no project could ever be undertaken. When Pakistan's successful missile test was shown on the national television, some sceptics even said that this was only a video of a test carried out in a neighbouring country. Now when a very important breakthrough has occurred in Thar and coal gas is being produced there are people who keep misleading the public by saying that gasification can only be possible once the coal has been brought on the surface after mining. The Planning Commission, the ECNEC forum and the Thar Coal Energy Board of Sindh are the country's esteemed institutions, which have all carefully scrutinised the financial feasibility, environmental aspects (both underground as well as in the atmosphere) and the technical viability of the project. When the government has created such strong institutions for this purpose, then public debate by semi-informed persons or by vested interests can only lead to unnecessary controversy. The people of Pakistan, he said, should be assured that under ground coal gasification at Thar is in the hands of the best scientific brains of the country who have successfully delivered for Pakistan in the past. The process of underground coal gasification was initially started in the former Soviet Union in 1933. Several plants were built there and today the 400 megawatts Angren plant in Uzbekistan is the world's oldest commercial plant operating since 1955. China today is the biggest user of this UCG technology. More than nine UCG fields in different parts of China are producing gas for cooking and heating (this answers some who say that it is dangerous gas and will explode and kill people), for production of ammonia, hydrogen, methanol, diesel and fertiliser. In a Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Report on UCG in 2010, it is stated that presently 50,000 megawatts of thermal UCG is being produced in the world. In some places, he said, experiments have not been successful because of the unfavourable hydro-geology. In Block V at the UCG project at Thar, an extensive and very professional exploration study including the entire underground picture in three dimensions of the coal seams as well as the rock formations, type of soil, positions of the aquifers and the chemical and physical properties of the coal was carried out. The gasifier design was based on this data and on the world criteria. As a result of all this work spanning hundreds of man hours, the design of our gasifier was declared to be perfect at the International UCG conference in Beijing in November last year. Surely this is true because the Gasifier is operating efficiently and producing coal gas of the best possible purity. It is a matter of interest that the debate against the UCG project seems to have picked up momentum ever since the breakthrough at the project and the successful production of coal gas has begun. All neutral observers have visited the site, made documentary films and recorded this significant achievement in print and the electronic media. When the delivery of our vital equipment was obstructed by some vested interests some patriotic people came forward and gifted us the equipment free of cost. The final conclusion of the international conference in Beijing two months ago was that UCG would prove to be a "game changer" for Pakistan's economy. He said with the patronage of the government of Pakistan and the government of Sindh, Inshallah, the coal gas from Thar will bring prosperity to the people of Pakistan. End.
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