Gas-Fired Power Climbs in Pakistan

The share of domestic gas and regasified imported LNG (RLNG) in Pakistan’s overall electricity production hit a record in February as the south Asian nation tries to move away from polluting fuels such as furnace oil.

According to data published March 21 by Pakistan’s National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, power generated using locally produced gas and RLNG was 3013 GWh or 43% of the total. Of the total, 19.20% (1,340 GWh) came from RLNG and 23.97% (1,673 GWh) from domestic production.

The share of gas-based power generation was 6.6 percentage points higher than in February last year. The jump in gas-based power production was primarily due to the launch of three RLNG-based power projects in Punjab that had cumulative production capacity of 3.6 GW, reported Express Tribune.

However, the newspaper said that power from RLNG cost almost twice as much per unit as that from domestic gas.

Pakistan has been working on reducing the share of furnace oil for power production keeping in mind the environmental impact and the government says gas, especially LNG, will continue to be an important source for power generation this year too. The country is building more import terminals and pipelines. Pakistan started importing LNG in 2015.