Category: Recent Post

The monster of circular debt keeps growing in the power sector. Bad governance is the overwhelming source of the circular debt build-up that is officially projected to cross the Rs2.8 trillion mark by June 30. This is almost half of the country’s about Rs5.5tr total tax revenue this year. This means an addition of Rs500 billion during the current fiscal year at an average rate of almost Rs42bn per month, according to a report submitted by the Power Division to the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCOE) last week. The report…

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ISLAMABAD: As foreign traders of liquefied natural gas (LNG) default on supplies amid gas shortages, the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) will meet here on Monday (today) to review the overall situation, including discontinuation of gas supplies to a large number of industries on a long-term basis. Following reports that two state-owned foreign suppliers had declined to supply their two committed vessels for delivery in February, Pakistani authorities are reported to have salvaged at least one of the vessels through high-level diplomatic efforts. However, the government has confirmed that one…

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ISLAMABAD: With more powers to Special Assistant to PM on Power, Tabish Gauhar, the negotiations with the IPPs with regard to converting MoUs into the amended Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) seemed to have moved towards conclusion. “The IPPs and government negotiating team are set to initialise the amended PPAs, sometime in next week, however, the proper signing would be held when the BoDs of IPPs ratify them and the Federal Cabinet would also approve the initials done by the government’s team,” one of top officials at the Petroleum Division told…

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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has opened bids for 20 onshore petroleum exploration blocks, the government said in statement on Friday. “The minimum investment to be carried out by the exploration and production (E&P) companies in these blocks for prospecting will be over $71 million in three years,” a statement from the petroleum division said. The move to grant licences for discovery comes after a gap of several years as the country is facing depleting gas reserves, a rising domestic shortage and increasing reliance on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG).

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BMW said on Friday that it aims to double its sales of fully electric vehicles this year as the German carmaker and rivals race to release new models to comply with CO2 emissions targets and chase market leader Tesla Inc. BMW also said that including plug-in hybrids, it aims for a 50% increase in sales of electrified vehicles versus 2020. It did not give sales volumes for its fully electric vehicles but in 2020 data released on Tuesday BMW said it sold close to 193,000 electrified vehicles – fully electric…

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