Can Pakistan extract fullest gains of Thar Coal?

Burning Pakistan’s locally extracted coal—Thar Coal—for power generation seems to be a possibility not so closer as the imported-coal-fired power plants across Pakistan do not burn even a small fraction of local coal for power generation although they had agreed to mix Thar coal with the imported one up to 10 to 15 percent.
During the PTI government, power sector sources told Engineering Review that the federal government and the power plants had agreed to start mixing Thar Coal with the imported coal for power generation so that they are converted to local coal in a phased manner. The objective, of course, was to save foreign exchange so that the tariff of the electricity should be brought down, an official says. ‘Only Jamshoro Power Plant was found to mix Thar coal with the imported one’.
The recent media reports say an investment company—AsiaPak—has agreed to invest in converting the Jamshoro Power Plant from imported to locally extracted Thar coal. The objective is the same as was set by the former government for all imported-coal-fired power plants across Pakistan.
AsiaPak Investments is a private investment firm with operational assets in Pakistan and Hong Kong.
Shehryar Chishti, CEO of AsiaPak Investments was quoted in a report as saying that “the federal government, encouraged by K-Electric and AsiaPak Investments, is now focused on converting this plant to Thar coal so that for the next 30-year life of this project consumes only Thar coal and not imported coal.”
Jamshoro Power Plant, financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is almost complete with a total cost of US$545 million but the report says it remains non-operational due to the increasing cost of imported coal. However, the officials privy to the issues of the Jamshoro Power plant say the costs of Thar coal and the imported one have leveled up due to a decrease in the cost of imported coal in the international market. Also, they say the imported coal is available in Pakistan at a spot rate in Pakistani currency. Thus, converting the plant to Thar Coal for which engineering costs are involved that in return will increase the power tariff is not a wise decision at the moment, they suggest.
Concurrently, Shehryar Chishti reportedly said the company would invest in the conversion of the plant, enabling power generation through local coal sourced from Thar at low cost. “We have submitted our plan to the government and soon after approval we will execute our investment plan,” he said. The plant would be ready by next year for power generation through local coal.
Information from Jamshoro says a Chinese company has moved a conversion plan which according to AsiaPak Investments cost around $50 million.
Importantly, the plan is in a thought process in Islamabad and no decision has been made so far as various aspects of the conversion are being looked into, says an informed engineer.
He says no matter K-Electric is interested in evacuating power from the power plant which the company believes produces cheaper electricity but the conversion is not so easy at this stage.
He said the transformation of the plant from imported coal to Thar Coal would take not less than one and a half years and it would increase the cost of the project as well as the interest rate which according to the calculation will stand not less than US$ 90 million.
However, Chisti reportedly said the process of conversion would take at least 10 months and electricity generated through local coal would be fed into the national grid. He hoped that power generation through local sources would reduce the country’s energy import bill. – With inputs from media reports n