KARACHI, Dec 3: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday said that he had asked the Planning Commission to come up with a 10 to 25 years energy perspective of Pakistan.

He was speaking as chief guest at the inauguration of the first phase of Progas Pakistan LPG Project at the Port Qasim here on Friday.

The Premier termed this as a very unique project to increase and augment the supply of LPG to retail and commercial customers. He stated that the Planning Commission report to this effect would be ready in the current month, and that it would look at exploration of resources of all hydrocarbons including coal, oil, gas, hydel, etc.

He said "we have a very attractive policy for exploration in Pakistan but we need to bring in more people to take part in this." Shaukat Aziz said another thing in this plan will be to see each type of energy resource and "how we can expand and leverage it."

He expressed the hope that the growth rate of energy would be higher than the growth projections being talked about in the GDP. "So we are talking about eight to 10 per cent annual growth rate in the energy (sector) alone", the Premier said.

He said in the electricity sector "we see a minimum demand of a billion dollars a year in power generation." "So we have a lot of opportunities and we have a lot of challenges," Shaukat Aziz remarked.

He pointed out that the thrust of the energy plan which he will share with the people when it is complete by the end of this month, is that we open new doors for private sector investment.

He said Pakistan was seriously looking at importing natural gas from a variety of sources. This includes Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar. We are talking to all three and we are in the process of now moving into the next phase of discussion.

Regarding the coal, he pointed out that Thar Coal is probably one of the 10 largest coal reserves in the world. It has challenges in terms of its composition and ability to use.

He said "we are seriously looking to convert this with the help of the Peoples Republic of China, into an electricity generating hub for Pakistan and that we can generate a lot of energy very efficiently."

He stated that the other area we are looking at in the energy sector is the LNG import. He said the government was encouraging the Pakistan Private Power Investment Board to bring more and more investors into the electricity generation.

The Prime Minister pointed out that road-shows have been planned in London and Dubai to attract investors for the power sector because the needs and the demands for energy will rise very rapidly.

He said that the Alternative Energy Board is exploring ways in terms of using solar energy, wind and many other alternative fuel to get energy for the area where the national grid does not operate or where the natural gas network does not exist.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that Port Qasim has tremendous potential to expand and become proactive and aggressive. The Premier pointed out that one of the biggest assets of any port like this is its land. He asked Port Qasim to aggressively market and sell its land to the right people as this would encourage industrial growth and commercial development. -APP