Category: Highlights

The beginning of commercial production by Lucky Cement’s 660-megawatt local coal-fired power project worth over $1 billion has faced a delay of around five months due to inability of the government to finish construction of transmission lines on time in the wake of Covid-19. The company has, however, refused to accept excuses from government agencies responsible to build the required power transmission infrastructure. In this regard, it has remained under contract with the authorities to launch commercial operation of the project by the middle of first quarter (Jul-Sept 2021) of…

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ISLAMABAD:ISLAMABAD:ISLAMABAD:The divestment of government of Pakistan’s remaining shares in Mari Petroleum has been held back due to observations made by the anticorruption watchdog. Sources told The Express Tribune that a meeting was held in the first week of January at the Privatisation Commission to discuss the divestment of Mari Petroleum’s shares. The meeting was chaired by the privatisation minister and attended by officials of the Petroleum Division as well as others. The participants were apprised that in a meeting held on August 5, 2019, both joint venture partners – Fauji…

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This was the first post I read at 12:00 midnight PST on January 9, 2021 and within five minutes, by just looking at (without reading) the number of comments, I knew this was a major power breakdown. As a student of crisis communications, there onwards I started noting the different pieces of information doing rounds on social media. They included speculation by the mainstream media about the causes of the breakdown, from “sources” talking about terrorist attacks, including misleading images of posts dating from 2015 as well as an attack…

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ISLAMABAD: The prices of key petroleum products — petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) — are estimated to go up by Rs9-11 per litre on Jan 31 for the first fortnight of February if straight calculations of Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) are accepted by the prime minister. However, based purely on international prices published in Platt’s Oilgram, the prices of petrol and HSD would need an increase of Rs2.30 and Rs2.11 per litre, respectively. A Petroleum Division official said that based on import shipments as of Jan 27, the…

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Committee okays continuation of general subsidy on five essential items through USC; approves allocation of gas from Mari Petroleum wells to SSGC; defers five-year textile policy for further deliberations The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has constituted a four-member committee to review the margins of oil marketing companies/dealers on petroleum products. The ECC meeting was held under the chair of Finance and Revenue Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on Thursday. According to details, the Petroleum Division had proposed Rs0.45 per litre hike in OMCs’ margin on MS and…

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