A Canadian oil and gas company on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Sindh government for establishing a petrochemical plant in the province to produce bye-products of coal including diesel jet fuel, chemical and plastics.

Chief of Kethy Oil and Gas Company, Robert Miller signed the MoU on behalf of his company while Director General Sindh Coal Authority Syed Abbass Ali Shah on behalf of Sindh government at Chief Minister House. Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Minister for Mineral Development Irfranullah Khan Marwat witnessed the singing ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Arbab Rahim said that Sindh was endowed with huge reserves of coal and all this coal would be explored and utilised. He said that basic infrastructure had already been provided in Thar area connecting the coalfields to Karachi by road and rail links.

Chief Minister said that Canadian Company would bring in the latest technology to Sindh to dig out methane gas lying below coal reserves. This gas would be converted into diesel, jet fuel and plastics as bye-products of coal and would be sold locally to meet the rising demands for these products. He said that Sindh government would provide all possible support and help to the Canadian Company in this project.

To a question, he said that new off-shore and on-shore coalfields had also been discovered in the province. Responding to a question about the Chinese company involved in setting up power plant in Thar, Dr Arbab Rahim said that the president and prime minister had taken up the matter with Wapda for power tariff and they would decide the issue. As soon as the tariff was approved, the company would take further steps, he added.

Earlier, speaking at the singing ceremony, Robert Miller said that his company would invest about $2 billion on the exploration, development and production of coal bye-products. He said that his company would use latest petrochemical, drilling and exploration technology in Pakistan, which was new to this part of the world.

"We will also set up a geology, exploration excellence centre in Sindh. In the first phase, we intend to invest more than $250 million and we plan to be in the field in February this year and drill 1000 wells", he noted.

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Finally more steps in the right direction.

We should be concentrating on this big time.

In our country we should be trying to make our cars run on LPG, our trains and inner city buses on electricity and make our electricity using nuclear and water energy, so that we can save a huge burdern on every single Pakistani.

Having the ability to make these things ourselves allows us to provide these services at dirt cheap prices domestically and at higher prices abroad.

Canadian company to set up $2bn plant

KARACHI, Jan 24: A Canadian oil and gas company on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Sindh government for establishing a petrochemical plant in the province to produce bye-products of coal including diesel, jet fuel, chemicals and plastics.

Chief of Kethy Oil and Gas Company, Robert Miller, signed the MoU on behalf of his company, while director general Sindh Coal Authority, Syed Abbas Ali Shah signed on behalf of the Sindh government at Chief Minister’s House.

Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Minister for Mineral Development Irfranullah Khan Marwat witnessed the signing ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Arbab Rahim said that Sindh was endowed with huge reserves of coal and all these deposits would be explored and utilized.

He said that the basic infrastructure had already been provided in Thar area connecting the coal fields to Karachi by road and rail links. The chief minister said that the Canadian company will bring in the latest technology to exploit methane gas lying below the coal reserves. This gas will be converted into diesel, jet fuel and plastics as bye-products of coal and sold locally to meet the rising demands for these products.

He said that the Sindh government will provide all possible support and help to the Canadian company to execute the project.

To a question, he said that the new offshore and onshore coal fields had also been discovered in the province. With regard to the problem faced by the Chinese company engaged in setting up a power plant in Thar, he said that the president and the prime minister had taken up the tariff issue with WAPDA. As soon as the tariff is approved, the company will take further steps, he added.

Earlier, speaking at the signing ceremony, Robert Miller said that his company will invest about $2 billion on the exploration, development and production of coal’s bye-products.

He said that his company will use latest petrochemical, drilling and exploration technology in Pakistan, which will be new to this part of the world.

“We will also set up a Geology exploration excellence centre in Sindh. In the first phase, we intend to invest more than $250 million and we plan to be in the field by February this year and drill about 1,000 wells,” he said.

Miller said that this project will provide 10,000 jobs directly, while 40,000 people would be linked to the project indirectly. He said that the Pakistani engineers possessed the required qualifications needed for the project.—APP