* Energy crisis caps economic growth
* Pakistan has one of world’s biggest untapped coal reserves
* Coal seen at over 10 pct of energy mix in five years
By Jacqueline Cowhig and Qasim Nauman
LONDON/ISLAMABAD, April 13 (Reuters) – Pakistan must turn to
coal – both from its own large untapped reserves and from
imports – to fuel power generation beyond the next decade if it
is to ease the energy crisis which is capping economic growth,
trade and industry sources said on Friday.
The sixth most heavily-populated country globally with 180
million people, it has been plagued for years by power cuts and,
unless new sources of generation can be developed, will see
power demand outstrip supply for years to come.
Yet it has one of the biggest, barely-touched, single coal
reserves on the planet – the massive Thar coalfield in the
northern Sindh province with 175 billion tonnes of extremely
high water-content, low energy coal.
This kind of low-grade, watery coal is found in abundance in
other countries, such as Indonesia, the world’s biggest
exporter, but it has not been economic to exploit in the past.
But high oil and gas prices, rising coal prices and new
technology to dry out watery, gaseous coal or leave it in the
ground but extract the gas from it instead, has prompted
projects around the world.
Continued…
