Month: July 2020

PM aide raises questions over sale of DISCOs

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ISLAMABAD: Several questions have been raised over the privatisation of power distribution companies, which include giving monopoly rights to buyers of power firms. It is imperative that issues are addressed before moving towards successful privatisation. These questions were raised by Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar, who was also the chairman of task force on energy. Babar had proposed the beginning of privatisation of two distribution companies – Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco) and Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco). However, he added that before such a process…

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NTDC Blames ‘Policy Limitations’ For Gaps in Generation Plan

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ISLAMABAD: The National Transmission & Despatch Company (NTDC) on Tuesday blamed the policy and procedural limitations and govern¬ment entities for certain deficiencies in the 27-year Integrated Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP 2020-47).However, it said the deficiencies in the expansion plan will be fixed during the regulatory scrutiny.Responding to various interventions made by provincial governments and other stakeholders over the IGCEP 2020-47, contested observations like delay in the Diamer-Bhasha Dam’s (DBD) commercial operations until 2043, the company said the construc¬tion on the mega project did not start on Dec 31, 2019…

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Indebted Mexican State Oil Firm Plans $22-Billion Debt Swap

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Mexico’s state-owned oil firm Pemex, which has US$105 billion in debt, is planning a debt swap for a total of US$22.4 billion long-term bonds, according to a filing to the SEC reported by Reuters. The Mexican oil firm has been amassing enormous debt for years, and in October last year, it carried out a massive operation to refinance around US$20 billion of its debt via new bond offerings and debt swaps. Mexico’s leftist populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador planned to make Pemex the pillar of a turnaround for the…

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Researchers Look For Ways To Cut Norway’s Gargantuan $100 Billion Decommissionin

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A new innovation center in Norway aims to find alternative and cost-efficient solutions aimed at reducing the huge US$100 billion decommissioning cost that the North Sea operators and countries face, researchers and officials told Bloomberg. The SFI Swipa (Subsurface Well Integrity, Plugging and Abandonment) center was granted the status of Center for Research-Driven Innovation for the next eight years by government-run Board of the Research Council of Norway. The SFI Swipa center and its researchers will look into innovative ways for well plugging and abandoning (P&A), which makes up much…

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Russia-led Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline Could Be Completed Soon

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A Russian vessel capable of completing the pipelaying for the Gazprom-led Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project left a German port on Wednesday and entered Danish waters where the last section of the controversial pipeline has yet to be completed. According to vessel-tracking data from Refinitiv Eikon cited by Reuters, Russian ship Fortuna, sailing under a Russian flag, departed from the Mukran port in Germany on the Baltic Sea and moved into Danish territorial waters. The move comes several days after the Danish Energy Agency allowed Nord Stream 2…

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