Pakistan has dccided to import coal from Afghanistan to deal with the energy crisis. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has directed the concerned authorities to take all necessary steps to start the coal transmission from the neighboring country for power generation as soon as possible. Pakistan’s Information Minister, Maryam Aurangzeb, has said that importing coal from Afghanistan would be very helpful in getting the country out of the energy crisis. The government is working on similar strategic partnership plans with several other countries.
She said that there is an energy crisis in the world at the moment and strategic partnership is very important to solve it. She says that Pakistan needs coal, LNG, petrol and all kinds of energy and should not impose its burden on the people at such a price. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Monday chaired a meeting on improving the transportation system of coal imported from Afghanistan and approved the import of coal from the neighboring country in rupees instead of dollars.
According to a statement issued by the meeting, the Prime Minister was informed that the import bill of coal was initially required for Sahiwal and Hub power plants from Afghanistan, and it would save more than 2.2 billion annually in the import bill. Maryam Aurangzeb said a team of experts was working to determine the details of coal imports from Afghanistan to make the project as feasible as possible.
He said that during the four years of the previous government, the need for energy was not realized, and no effort was made to achieve it. Experts say that Pakistan is an energy importing country, and efforts to get it from countries in the region will be useful. Energy expert Imran-ul-Haq says there will be logistical problems with procuring coal from Afghanistan because it does not have a railway line or a ship to transport it and will have to rely on trucks alone.
He said that a few thousand tons of coal would be transported by thousands of trucks, which would be an expensive means of transportation in addition to the additional road load.
However, he said that if it were suitable for coal power plants, it would also provide cheap electricity to Pakistan and reduce the burden on foreign exchange reserves.
Energy expert Arshad Abbasi says Afghanistan’s coal is better than Indonesia’s and South Africa’s, and because of its good quality, it will be useful for power plants in Pakistan. He said that a few months ago when Pakistan was generating additional electricity, a proposal was under consideration that Pakistan should get coal in exchange for supplying electricity to Afghanistan. “Thanks to this coal, in addition to the existing Sahiwal and Hub power plants, energy plants can be set up in the border areas of Afghanistan in the future,” he said.
Irfan-ul-Haq says shipping coal from Afghanistan will not be an easy and quick process but could take at least six months to begin. He said it was good that Pakistan had to pay in local currency, which would reduce the burden on foreign exchange reserves. However, he said that it would be more beneficial to use Thar coal instead of getting coal from Afghanistan as it would not be a matter of price, nor would there be any difficulty in payment.
It should be noted that the Russia-Ukraine war has led to a shortage of energy around the world, which has led to a significant increase in energy prices.
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