Geopolitics fueling Pakistan's energy crisis
A closer look at post fall of Dacca era indicates that the
strategic plans followed by the successive governments in Pakistan were
dictated from outside. From super powers to multilateral lenders and from
locals seeking power to policy planners followed strategic plans that were not
in the larger interest of the country.
One of the latest evidences is that President Asif Ali
Zardari skipped his visit to Tehran and went to UK to meet Malala Yousufzai. He
was scheduled to stopover in Tehran to sign some important agreements
pertaining to Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. There is a consensus in Pakistan that
the pipeline has not become reality only because of opposition of United
States.
Examining the power sector alone supports this perception.
Everyone knows that Pakistan enjoys enormous potential to produce 40,000MW
electricity from hydel plants. In the earlier days country succeeded in
constructing three dams/hydel plants i.e. Warsak, Mangla and Tarbella. The plan
was to complete one dam in a decade. Mangla was completed in mid sixties and
Tarbella in mid seventies but then no more funds were made available for contraction
any mega size das after Kalabagh Dam project ran into controversy.
Over the years also came a paradigm shift in the policies of
multilateral donors. They decided not to lend more funds to WAPDA and
encouraged contraction of fossil oil based thermal power plants by the private
sector. Pakistan faces double edged sword as more than 75% of total power
generation capacity is oil based and oil prices are hovering around US$100/barrel.
It the recent past oil price also touched record level of US$147/barrell.
Pakistan is blessed with natural gas but turmoil in Balochistan
affects drilling of new wells in the province. Fortunately reasonably large oil/gas
reserves have been discovered in Sindh but excessive reliance on gas has led to
present gas crisis. Gas can’t be produced from some of the mega fields discovered
lately due to ongoing litigation.
Little has been the progress on exploitation of Thar coal,
capable of producing 50,000MW electricity over the next half a century. Over
the years enough funds were not allocated for the construction of required
infrastructure and lately Chinese working in the area were forced to stop their
work.
The latest controversy about the quality of Thar coal and
process of mainlining seems to be driven by groups having vested interest. While
things were moving smooth for establishing mine-mouth power plant, entered a
group insisting of coal gasification process. Though, the available data
suggests coal gasification technology can’t be used for commercial purposes,
this group is insisting on release of millions of dollars for the deployment of
economically unviable technology.
Some of the groups are also suggesting exploitation of other
sources of energy i.e. introduction of E-10 and granting sugar mills IPP
(independent power plant) status. The entire required infrastructure is present
in the country but oil lobby is opposing this, it knows very well that going
for E-10 and granting sugar mills IPP status will hurt its interest.
Some experts also say that much of the hype about shortage
of gas is aimed at creating a justification for the import of LNG and creation
of LNG handling infrastructure. Earlier Rental Power Plants (RPPs) melodrama
was created that fizzled out due to credible evidence of massive corruption.
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