KARACHI: The Sindh government has planned to launch Thar Coal Block-VI as a national strategic project under the China Pakistan Economic Corri­dor (CPEC) to develop coal mine, install a 1,320 MW coal-fired power project, produce gas, urea and diesel.

The area of Block-VI is 66.1 square kilometres and it contains estimated total coal reserves of 1.4 billion tonnes.

This emerged at a meeting held here at the energy depart­ment between Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh and a UK-based company, Oracle, represented by its CEO Naheed Memon.

The energy minister said that with the efforts of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Thar Block-VI was included in the CPEC-related 9th Joint Coordination Committee meeting of Nov 5, 2019 as a potential block for coal to gas to urea/fertiliser production.

In pursuance of the JCC decision, the Oracle PLC intends to enter into a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with the China Coal Energy Company on Dec 15 in Dubai, which is a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Coal Group Company Ltd, the CEO said.

Naheed Memon said that Oracle Power PLC (Previo­usly Oracle Coalfields), was a company incorporated in the United Kingdom and quoted on London Stock Exchange.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2019