ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: The government has prequalified four foreign firms for award of Rs198 million contract to conduct a feasibility study of Thar Coal deposits in Sindh province.

These companies include Rheinbraun Engineering and Deutsche Montance Technologie of Germany, Marston & Marston of the United States and Harworth Mining Consultancy of the United Kingdom.

All the four firms on Thursday made presentations to a special steering committee on Thar Coal bankable feasibility study. The steering committee meeting was presided over by director general of Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) and attended by senior officers of petroleum ministry, secretary and director general mines and mineral development, Sindh and officials of the Sindh Coal Authority (SCA).

An official announcement said that a total of 14 companies had applied to conduct bankable feasibility study for Thar coal mining for power generation. Based on presentations and later detailed scrutiny of their technical and financial bids, one of the four companies would be awarded a contract to conduct the feasibility study.

Around 80 per cent of the Rs198 million cost of the study would be provided by the federal government while remaining 20 per cent by the Sindh government. The GSP and SCA would jointly oversee the contractor’s work and implementation of the project.

A very large reserves of lignite coal were discovered by the GSP in 1992 in the Tharparkar district of Sindh. It has so far been established that reserves of over 175 billion tons of coal were available over an area of about 9,000 sq. km.

Of the total, proven reserves of more than 9 billion tons have been estimated only with an area of 360 km by drilling 217 bore holes.

Shenhua Group of China, a mining and power generation company, is currently carrying out detailed studies over one out of four geological zones for setting up 1,000 mw coal-fired power plant at mine site in Thar. The power generation capacity of the plant would eventually be raised to 3,000 mw.

The GSP has already awarded a contract to a Pakistani firm for sinking a 180-metre deep shaft in Thar for extracting 2,000 tons of coal for combustion tests abroad. The shaft has so far reached a depth of 64 metres.

A high-level task force led by president Pervez Musharraf is looking after the whole process of Thar coal development for power production based on indigenous resources.