Pakistan – ‘The Land of the Dark Gold’
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011 7:16:44 by Khayyam Bokhari
Unscathed or impervious by this wrath of load shedding, the people of this country are surely fed up now. Alongside, continued power outages and then blabbering of current administration that this condition is out of their hands left you wonder what’s wrong with this state.
Recently our ‘Load Shedding’ minister proclaimed that this nightmare has no chance of coming to an end till 2018. So does this means we have 7 more years of load shedding? To tell you the truth, I don’t deem one word that this administration says and also if these people linger in power there is no chance that this crisis is going to end any soon. Fortunately Pakistan is a country rich in natural resources that are yet to be exploited.
I presume that most of us must have heard regarding our coal fields in Thar. If NOT, than I am here to blog you about this. I have gathered mouth opening information about Thar coal reservoirs from numerous websites.
Pakistan coal reserves are ranked 7thlargest in the world. If all the oil reserves of Saudi Arab & Iran put together these are just about 375 billion barrels, however, a single Thar coal reserve of Sindh is about 850 trillion cubic feet, which is more than oil reserves of Saudi & Iran. These reserves estimated at 850 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas, about 30 times higher than Pakistan’s proven gas reserves of 28 TCF.
These reserves of coal worth USD 25 trillion can not only supply the electricity requirements of the country for decades but also bank more or less four billion dollars in staggering oil import bill. Just 2% usages of Thar Coal can generate 20,000 mega Watts of electricity for next 40 Years, devoid of any single second of Load Shedding. The coal power generation would cost Pakistan PKR 5.67 per unit whereas power generated by autonomous Power Projects cost PKR 9.27.
Chinese and other companies had not only carried out surveys and feasibilities of this project but also offered 100 percent investment in last 7 to 8 years but the “Petroleum Mafia” always discouraged them in a very systematic way. This ‘Petroleum mafia’ is very strong in Pakistan and they are against any other means of power generation except for the imported oil. This lobby is major beneficiary of the increasing oil bill that is estimated above 15 billion dollar this year. The value of Thar Coal is about Rs. 8 trillion and if energy is produced then the value of energy will be about Rs.25 trillion.
It’s our job to stop this ‘mafia’ from sullying our country and our lives. We should spread this message so these wrongdoers realize that the public is ‘waking up’ and there will be a colossal backlash if no measures are taken by this crooked and incompetent regime.
Tags: Black Gold, Coal reserves, Petroleum MafiaShort URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=1369
Posted by 
