Pakistani Plant Switches to Gas

The 525 MW Nandipur power plant near Gujranwala in Punjab state is now running on regasified LNG, Pakistan's newspaper Dawn reported April 23.

The plant previously ran on fuel oil. “The Nandipur thermal power plant has been converted to gas. Officials concerned have launched a test run after we started providing gas to it from Thursday,” Sui Northern Gas Pipelines managing director Amjad Latif told the Pakistani daily. About 10-30mn ft³/d of regasified LNG is being supplied during the trial phase and once full commercial operation begin, about 100mn ft³/d of regasified LNG will be supplied.

Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif (Credit: Wikipedia)

As part of the conversion to gas, the Nandipur plant's capacity was increased from 425 MW to 525 MW

In February, the power plant was handed over to China's Hydro Electric Power System Engineering Company (Hepsec) for operation and maintenance, after a ten-year agreement for its long-term operation and maintenance was signed by Northern Power Generation Company Limi­ted with Hepsec.

Pakistani's government has been working on expanding the role of imported LNG in the domestic gas mix as local gas supplies dwindle. Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif April 19 inaugurated the gas-fired combined cycle power plant at Bhikki, also in the state of Punjab. This will add 717 MW to the national grid and when the plant is fully complete it will provide 1.18 GW.

Gas plays a major role in Pakistan’s economy, being split between power generation (35%), industry (23.8%), fertiliser (15.6%), compressed natural gas, used in cars and other vehicles (5.4%) and households (18.1%), according to government data.

Shardul Sharma