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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
PML-N sees energy crisis as big challenge for next govtISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Monday pointed out energy crisis as the biggest challenge for the new government after elections and blamed the successive regimes, including the incumbent Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government, for the energy crisis.
The top leadership of the PML-N, including its President, Nawaz Sharif, dwelt at length on the energy shortage in the country in its “National Conference on Energy for Growth and Sustainable Development”.
In the daylong conference, energy experts, industrialists, consumers, researchers and lawmakers presented various suggestions to overcome the problem.
The PML-N chief, who was scheduled to attend the conference, could not come and PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq delivered his speech.
Nawaz traced the causes of the present energy crisis back in the power policy of 1994, when the independent power producers (IPPs) were offered contracts on generous terms of 6.5 cents per unit plus cost of oil to set up electricity plants based on imported furnace oil.
This policy, under which several thermal plants with total capacity of 7,000MW were set up, drastically changed the hydro-thermal mix from 70:30 in the early 1990s to 30:70 at present, and increased the country’s dependence on imported fuel for its energy needs with serious economic and environmental consequences, he said. As the price of oil, the PML-N president noted, increased from $10-15 a barrel in 1994 to over $140 a barrel in 2008, the foreign exchange cost of petroleum imports went up 12 times from Rs 42 billion ($1 billion) to Rs 724 billions ($12 billion), which raised the cost of generating one unit of electricity to over Rs 10 per kwH, compared to Re 1 per kwH from hydro electricity, pushing the cost beyond the reach of ordinary consumer.
Nawaz urged the government take its coalition partners onboard regarding matters of vital national importance as foreign and interior policies, besides issues of water, energy and others. He also announced full support over giving top priority to such matters like import of gas from Turkmenistan, and Iran, besides renewing MoUs of importing 1,000MW electricity from Tajikistan.
Speaking on the occasion, PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar said that it was the age of geo-economics. “We need to make rebuilding and modernisation of economy our national priority number one. But, without energy, all economic plans will remain in papers.”
He said the PML-N was working very seriously to develop comprehensive short-term and medium-term strategies to ensure adequate supply of electricity and gas at affordable prices to average citizen and to the agricultural and industrial consumers.
Dar pointed out that concrete steps were needed to reduce Rs 800 billion circular debt, which was hampering the economic development in the country. He said that this roadmap for energy security must be sustainable, environmentally friendly, and practical.
Dar opined that it was the responsibility of the state to ensure continuous and uninterrupted availability of energy for commercial uses at competitive price to generate economic growth and for domestic consumers meet their life long needs with clean, safe, and convenient forms of energy at affordable prices.
The PML-N leader said that his party had made blueprint for such a roadmap and incorporated it in the party’s manifesto for the next elections.
PML-N Information Secretary Ahsan Iqbal talked about the problem of circular debt, which he said was the direct consequence of the 1994 energy policy. “The Musharraf government neither adjusted increase in oil prices in 2007 to recover the full cost of generating thermal energy nor did he used fiscal means to provide the required subsidy,” he said.
Pakistan thermal capacity is 13,500MW against a total installed capacity of 20,000MW, he said, adding that during the last four years, the thermal generation has hardly exceeded 10,000MW creating a demand-supply gap of 3500-4000MW. He said that this gap increased to 5,000MW in winter with lower hydel generation. Former finance minister Sartaj Aziz said that many of the power generation turbines were very low in efficiency, and had to be replaced with high efficiency turbines in a phased manner.
“By providing gas to the oil-based power generation plants we can drastically cut cost of generation. For this we will need to bring in production discovered gas fields on a fast track, set up LNG project within two years, and expedite work on gas pipeline projects,” he added.
Aziz deplored that energy management and conservation was an area which had been ignored. “Potential of energy saving and efficiency improvement in Pakistan is huge by implementing improvements in generation, transmission, and distribution system,” he said.
“Overall, we have a potential of saving of more than 15%, which is equivalent to about 50% reduction in net oil imports. Poor governance has compounded the crisis,” he added.
Raja Zafarul Haq opined that none of Pakistan’s problems was unsolvable. “We need synergistic solutions, which means bringing all stakeholders together on common goals,” he added. Different scholars, energy experts, engineers, professionals and parliamentarians also shared their views and suggested various proposals. The PML-N called upon the government to ensure consensus of its coalition partners in all national matters.
Asad Umar, chief executive of Angro Pakistan, Shamsul Mulk, former WAPDA chairman, Najam Haider, Syed Mahmud Hussain Gardezi, Shahid Khakan Abbasi, Abdur Rahman and Shaukat Amin, former member of the Planning Commission, shared their views. Sartaj Aziz, PML-N Manifesto Committee chairman, presented concluding remarks. staff report/online
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk