ISLAMABAD, Aug 27: China has asked Pakistan to undertake over the construction of $730 million Chashma Nuclear Power Project Unit-2 (300MW) before Beijing starts making new commitments for such other projects elsewhere.

Official sources told Dawn here on Tuesday that Chinese government had decided to initiate several nuclear power projects of their own, which might engage their entire manufacturing capacity in the near future.

The Planning Commission has proposed that the Economic Committee of the National Economic Council should discuss and formally approve the project before China loses its interest in the plan.

The sources said the extent of self-financing in C-2 would depend on the tariff provided for C-1. Therefore Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), sponsor of the project, has developed two alternatives for C-2 based on the existing tariff of Rs2.25/Kwh and Rs3.15/ Kwh, as originally okayed by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet.

The sources also said the PAEC had applied for a generation license to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) and expected to get it shortly.

The Planning Commission has supported the early initiation of the project, especially when all the technical and financial aspects were already cleared at a meeting held on May 2, 2003.

The PAEC had planned to earn Rs4.1 billion from the sale proceeds of electricity from the Chashma power projects.

The commission has also proposed the establishment of a Nuclear Power Authority so that the entire proceed of their entity should be invested in financing C-2 and future nuclear power developments. It favoured the PAEC to get registered as a power generation company and get their tariff approved by Nepra.

At present some 3,000MW thermal capacity is being used for the base load operation and C-2 will displace the base load thermal generation requiring about 0.43 million tons of furnace oil with net annual foreign exchange savings of Rs3.5 billion.