ISLAMABAD, July 24: The Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has approved five expressions of interest (EoIs) from independent power producers (IPPs) for additional 775-mw gas-based thermal power generation capacity with an estimated cost of $543 million.

A senior official of the PPIB told Dawn on Thursday that since announcement of 2002 power generation policy, it had received a total of 15 EoIs for a generation capacity of 2,683-mw with estimated cost of $1.9 billion. These include nine gas-based project, five hydel project and a project based on residual oil.

He said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources had been asked to expedite development work on new gas fields and pursue gas import plans vigorously to meet expected power shortages in the near future.

The government expected power shortages of more than 400-mw by the year 2006 and the shortage would go up to 5,529-mw by the year 2010.

The official said PPIB would invite EoIs for two coal based power projects with total capacity of 450-mw at Lakhra within this week because coal was ready for utilization there. Another project at Jherruk was also in the planning stage, he said.

The official said that estimated tariff for these gas-based projects for which EoIs had been accepted would be lower than the tariff of IPPs established under the 1994 power policy and now supplying power to Wapda and the KESC.

He said that fresh applicants would be offered power tariff on competitive bidding while the machinery and equipment cost of power plants had drastically dropped since early 1990s because of worldwide depressed market conditions. He said average cost of one megawatt power generation was around $1 billion in 1994 which has now reduced to $600-700 million per megawatt.

The companies that had been asked to submit formal technical and financial proposals after clearance of their EoIs include 123-mw Jarwar Thermal Power of Emirats Trading and Ascon of UAE to be located at Dharki in Sindh, 150-mw Tapal Thermal of Ameejee and Valee group at Karachi, 400-mw Orient Power Company of Nadeem Babar and 100-mw Kotli Hydro Power Project of Mira Energy Limited.

He said that natural gas was available at Mari deep gas field for 300-mw power generation at Dharki. Of this, EoI for 125-mw had been approved while Fauji Foundation which also owned the Mari field had also offered to install 300-mw power plant but they would not be allowed to exceed generation capacity of 175- mw. He said Orient Power

company had offered to install two plants of 200-mw each and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited had offered to provide

gas to the project for nine months a year for ten years.

He said some additional gas was also available at Uch gas field in Dera Murad Jamali but the project sponsors would have to secure a no-objection certificate from the existing 586-mw Uch Power Limited because the government had guaranteed gas supply to UPL for 25 years.

He said another EoI for setting up of 400-mw power station at Faisalabad had also been cleared but the project would not be able to start operation unless gas import project materialized.

The official explained that around 3,000-mw power stations which being pursued with a completion target of next two to four years were estimated to cost around $2.1 billion and would come from the private sector.

The companies which had submitted EoI for gas-based plants but had not been cleared so far include, Interconstruct Ltd (153-mw), Petroleum Exploration (150-mw), Gulf Power (58-mw), Fauji Foundation (450-mw).

Hydel power producers awaiting clearance of their EoI include Hydro Power Company (120-mw at Taunsa), AMZO Corporation (750-mw at Munda) and Mira Energy (110-mw at Gulpur and Jagran).

The Attock oil group had also submitted an EoI for 150-mw power plant to be based on residual oil but was unlikely to materialise.