Pakistan-China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) President Moazzam Ghurki stressed for utilization of Pakistan's coal reserves to meet the country's growing needs in power sector. During a think-tank session here at the PCJCCI secretariat, he maintained that coal was most widely used for cheap electricity generation and currently 36 percent of world's electricity was being generated through this source.

According to Gwadar Pro, Ghurki added that Pakistan had large reserves of coal, especially lignite coal, which China had imported for USD 8 billion in 2021 from other countries, instead of Pakistan due to the lack of technology and modern methods. The government of Pakistan should introduce modern technology to facilitate the miners with the latest mechanisms, to work on the coal reserves, he added.

PCJCCI Senior Vice President Fang Yulong said that Pakistan had large reserves of coal, especially lignite coal. Its coal deposits in Balochistan, Punjab and especially Sindh, where Thar desert has the 16th largest coal deposits. He highlighted that owing to global energy insecurity caused due to continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, many European nations had been compelled to revive their decades-old coal-based electricity plants to avoid energy shortages for their respective countries.

PCJCCI Vice President Hamza Khalid said that total coal reserves discovered in Pakistan were 185-billion-ton, but coal mining in Pakistan was facing a lot of issues due to lack of up-gradation of equipment. “The old methods of mining cause numerous deaths due to suffocation and blasts,” he mentioned.

He added that coal reserves in Thar could go a long way to make Pakistan an energy surplus country with the least reliance on imported fuel for power production. In his comments, Salahuddin Hanif, Secretary General PCJCCI, said that Pakistan could adopt a safe and balanced approach to exploit its vast coal reserve for power generation with the least damage to the environment to overcome energy shortfall without burdening the economy.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP