thar coal

Who's JV is this?

KARACHI, April 24: A Rs494 million gas purification plant will be set up at Thar under the coal gasification scheme to remove impurities from coal gas to be used for power generation.

The coal gasification scheme being supervised by nuclear scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand has been designed to convert coal underneath into gas through the use of chemicals and extract it for setting up two power plants initially of 50MW each.

The Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) to be carried out in Block V of Thar coal deposits is a joint venture between the federal and Sindh governments for which the former allocated Rs984.9 million of which Rs295 million had so far been released.

The governing body of the project in its meeting held here this week discussed the progress on the project and decided to mobilise work on the site.

The project involves horizontal drilling along the coal seams and converts the coal into gas diverting it to the purification plant upstream.

Sources at the mines department told Dawn on Saturday that a team of engineers had been given the task to design the gas purification plant.

The plant will remove impurities such as sulphur, carbon, tar and ash from the coal gas which would be collected as bye-products and stored for commercial use.

The sources said that process of drilling and converting coal into gas for upstream utilisation would take from 12 to 15 months. Tenders would be floated to invite bids from international drilling firms specialised in horizontal drilling.

The sources said that services of senior engineers from Atomic Energy Commission, Geological Survey of Pakistan, Karachi Refinery and SSGC had already been hired to oversee the project.

The governing body of the project urged the federal ministry of finance to pay the amount in lump sum instead of quarterly releases as ready finances would be required for a fast-track implementation of the project.

The UCG is the most important clean coal technology with worldwide application. Ultimately, it could be a substitute for deep coal mining consuming far less time in getting coal for power generation.