ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: Nine major international companies are seriously competing to set up a 1,200 mw power plant near Karachi in response to the government’s emergency efforts to overcome power shortages.

Sources in the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) told Dawn on Friday that nine companies had submitted their statements of qualifications (SOQs) by Sept 20 deadline given by the government to set up a 1,000-1,200 mw integrated imported coal-based power project near Karachi. The companies include Sumitomo of Japan, Siemens and Reinhaul of Germany, Al-Jumaih Group of Saudi Arabia, AES Corporation of the US and Malakoff of Malaysia.

A total of 16 companies had earlier purchased pre-qualification documents but nine of them responded seriously to the government’s offer and filed the SOQ that would be evaluated by a committee for pre-qualification and ranking by Oct 20. The PPIB will notify pre-qualified sponsors on Nov 1 and issue letters of intent (LOI) on Nov 15 this year to two bidders.

The successful bidder will be required to carry out a detailed feasibility study and then negotiate tariff. The government has officially conceded its failure in using indigenous coal reserves, although Pakistan has one of the world’s largest coal reserves in Thar where efforts to generate electricity have not materialised yet.

The PPIB said Pakistan was a coal-rich country with more than 185 billion tons of coal reserves, but the reserves had not been developed due to lack of infrastructure and other reasons.