KARACHI: The Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) has signed two agreements for the supply of 3.8 million tonnes of coal a year.

The SECMC, a joint venture between the Sindh government and Engro Powergen Ltd, said in a statement on Monday it will supply 1.9m tonnes of coal each to Thar Energy Ltd (TEL) and Thal Nova.

TEL and Thal Nova are setting up mine-mouth power plants of 330 megawatts each in Block-II of Thar coalfield. These plants, capable of running 100 per cent on Thar coal, are expected to come on line by early 2020.

After commissioning of these two projects, the SECMC would be mining 7.6m tonnes a year from the block. This would help reduce the coal tariff to around $41.35 a tonne, which will be equivalent to imported coal on a ‘dollar per million British thermal units’ basis, the statement said.

In April 2016, the SECMC and Engro Powergen Thar Ltd (EPTL) achieved combined financial close to supply 3.8m tonnes a year of coal to EPTL.

Currently, a project to mine 3.8 million tonnes of coal a year and 660MW power plant is in progress. It is expected to come on line by June 2019.

Thal Nova is a joint venture of Thal Ltd and Novatex Ltd, which are subsidiaries of Thal Power (Private) Ltd and Nova Powergen Ltd, respectively.

TEL is the subsidiary of Hub Power Company Ltd, one of the largest independent power providers in Pakistan.

The signing ceremony was attended by SECMC CEO Shamsuddin Shaikh, Hubco CEO Khalid Mansoor and Thal Nova CEO Khalid Siraj Subhani.

Mr Shaikh said the SECMC was expanding its mining project to address electricity shortage in the country and to provide affordable electricity to the public.

“It will not only become cheaper than the imported coal as the mine expands,” he said. “It will also contribute in other benefits like increase in employment in particular to the locals, infrastructure development and significant savings in foreign exchange against imported coal.”

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2017