Category: Recent Post

ISLAMABAD: Misaligned and reactive policies have perhaps been the greatest woes for Pakistan’s power sector. Be it the 1994 and 2002 power policies, which rightly incentivised the generation business but failed to build a consumer protection mechanism over the years based on past learnings, or more recently, the proposed changes to the sector’s landscape without effective consultation and impact analysis, potentially benefiting only a handful at the cost of masses, the sector calls for holistic and comprehensive reforms, rather urgently. Revelations made in a 278-page inquiry report on the power sector…

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ISLAMABAD: The Central Power Purchasing Agency and the National Transmission & Despatch Company — both key federal entities — have opposed transmission licence to the Khyber Pakhtun­khwa Transmission and Grid System Company (KPTGC) that seeks to operate about 7300MW of power supply system in the province over a period of five to 10 years. In response to comments sought by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) from stakeholders over the KPTGC’s request for grant of provincial transmission licence, the Punjab government has, however, supported the request while demanding that…

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Recent debates in Pakistan over imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) have remained mostly political rather than professional. Unfortunately, energy czars like Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Nadeem Babar focused on political point-scoring instead of finding solutions. In fact, Pakistan has operated its gas system inefficiently and burnt its scarce molecules rather recklessly for decades. Energy issues remain more basic in nature like the risk of continued shortages, lack of reliability, affordability of gas and sustainability of economic growth largely fuelled by energy. Simply put, we’ve an energy trilemma at hand: security,…

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KARACHI: Pakistan expects to save about $8 million by importing low-cost liquefied natural gas (LNG) after Dubai’s Emirates National Oil Company Limited (ENOC) defaulted on its supply commitment last week, a senior official confirmed while talking to Arab News on Saturday.  Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL), a state-owned entity that procures and imports the commodity, said on Friday it had arranged one more LNG cargo at low price for the month of February by floating an urgent tender.  “The price is approximately 22% lower than the price of the bidder that withdrew…

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Pakistan’s first and mega High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) project, Lahore-Matiari transmission line, will be ready by April. According to official sources, the project, launched under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), would cost $ 1.68 billion and was the first HVDC project in the country and the second in the entire world. They said the project would help evacuate 4,000MW power from plants in south to urban load centres in Punjab. Work on the project was launched in December, 2018 across Sindh and Punjab, they said. The transmission line was…

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