HYDERABAD, Feb 20: Sindh Minister for Mines and Minerals Irfanullah Khan Marwat said on Tuesday that the government would soon sign an agreement with a Chinese company to explore china clay in the province.

The minister was speaking at inauguration ceremony for a postgraduate level 18-day course on "Rock mechanics design in mining and civil engineering" at the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology that a new company had been created to exploit coal resources in Thar in collaboration with Sindh and federal governments.

The course had been organised by the MUET’s Department of Mining and sponsored by Higher Education Commission-British Commission Joint Higher Education Linkage programme.

The government was in the process of establishing coal-fired power projects at Thar, Lakhra and Thatta-Sonda, the minister said added that German and Chinese companies had already completed feasibility studies while the government had also launched a number of exploration studies in this connection.

He praised the role of British Council and HEC for their support of the collaboration programme between MUET and the University of Nottingham, UK.

Dr R. N. Singh of the Nottingham University would conduct the course, which was part of a three-year collaboration programme between the MUET and the Nottingham University in the field of rock mechanics.

The minister said that the Thar coal project would require the services of thousands of qualified and highly trained engineers and assured that the Sindh government was ready to assist the students and graduates of the university in their field training.

He said that he would welcome schemes jointly launched by the university, Sindh Coal Authority and mineral development departments. Sindh has huge hitherto untapped reserves of coal deposits sufficient to meet the nation’s energy demands for decades to come, he said.