KARACHI, Sept 4: With very little rainfall in the monsoon season and less water available from melting snow, the water level in dams has fallen to low levels
, stated analysts at brokerage firm Elixir Securities Pakistan, quoting PPIB sources.
A looming power shortage and falling water levels in the country's major reservoirs was likely to add further pressure on the government kitty over the next 2-3 years, said the analysts. In a report 'spotlight on the power sector', Elixir Securities observed that according to official figures, electricity demand within the country increased by a CAGR of 4.3 per cent over FY99-03. That was due to the insufficient availability of gas, because of which most of the needs were fulfilled by furnace oil.
In FY04, the power sector consumed an estimated 3.1mn tons of furnace oil, 48 per cent lower than the year ago, due to increased water availability. But in FY05 the water situation was likely to deteriorate. "In our opinion, this alone is likely to increase electricity production from furnace oil fired plants by about 13.5 per cent which in turn will increase the power sector's net consumption by about the same magnitude", said the analysts, adding that international oil prices being high, it could add further pressure on the trade deficit and thereby on the rupee dollar parity.
Indus River System Authority (Irsa), analyst said, was worried that the country had entered a drought phase. Water levels in the Tarbela Dam and the Mangla Dam were 44 per cent and 36 per cent lower than capacity, respectively. Water levels were also down by 44 per cent and 38 per cent on a year-on-year basis, in the Tarbela and Mangla dam, respectively. In the next 2-3 years, the government was likely to concentrate on generating power from thermal plants.
Currently, Pakistan generates total electricity of 75,682GwH. The thermal to hydel mix stands at 68:30 where 48 per cent of electricity is produced by oil and coal fired thermal power plants. Analysts thought that in FY04, due to better water availability this component should decrease. However, going forward the dependence on furnace oil was expected to increase. "According to rough estimates, a power shortage of 7000MW is expected by FY11", said the Elixir analysts.
They thought that in such a scenario, the government was likely to face pressure to increase the pace of setting up new power plants over the next 2-3 years. Although, for a majority of plants for which Letter of Intents (LoIs) were issued by the government, the expected completion date was sometimes in 2008, the construction was on at a fast pace and those plants were expected to be completed within the next 2-3 years.
The new power plants in the pipeline with an aggregate capacity of 1,810MW included the following: (project name, capacity and location): Star Thermal Project 123MW at Jarwar in Sindh; Western Electric Thermal Power 150MW project at Karachi; Balloki Thermal Power of 400MW at Balloki; Fauji Korangi Power Project of 150 MW at Karachi; Kotli Hydro Power of 97MW at Kotli; AJK Munda Hydropower 740MW in NWFP and InterGen Power Project of 150MW at Gurguri, NWFP.
