KARACHI: Lucky Cement Ltd said on Monday its wholly owned subsidiary, Lucky Electric Power Company, has successfully completed the commissioning of a 660-megawatt power plant at Bin Qasim.

A regulatory filing said the lignite coal-based supercritical power plant was synchronised with the national grid towards the end of 2021. Its extensive testing and relevant inspections since then led to its commercial operations date or COD on Monday.

The power plant has been designed to operate on Thar lignite coal. However, it’s going to run on imported lignite coal until the completion of the third and final phase of mining within Block 2 under Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC).

So far, SECMC is the only company that’s mining coal from the Thar coalfield. It’s been mining 3.8 million tonnes of coal every year since 2019. It sells its entire output to Engro Powergen Thar Ltd, which is so far the country’s only indigenous coal-based 660-megawatt power plant located next to the mine.

Under the ongoing second phase, coal mining by SECMC will double to 7.6m tonnes per year by June. It’ll coincide with the commissioning of a 330-megawatt power plant by Thar Energy Ltd, whose majority ownership is with The Hub Power Company (Hubco). Another Hubco-sponsored power plant of 330MW, ThalNova Power Ltd, will be commissioned immediately afterwards and will ensure the 100pc consumption of the enhanced output of SECMC’s mine in Block 2.

With its third-phase expansion by June 2023, the mine’s output will increase to 12.2m tonnes per year. The increased mining will supply fuel to the 660MW power plant that Lucky Electric Power Company has just commissioned at Port Qasim.

Coal has become the biggest source of power generation in Pakistan. The country produced almost one-third of its total electricity using the dirtiest fuel last month. In terms of the number of units produced, coal-based electricity production increased almost 35pc on a year-on-year basis in February.

In total, five coal-based electricity plants are currently operating in the country. Four of them — Sahiwal Power Plant, Port Qasim Power Plant, China Power Hub Generation and Lucky Electric Power — burn imported coal.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2022