Prospects for coal gasification in Pakistan

Pakistan is currently facing serious energy supply problems. Energy demand has been increasing by about 8% per year during the last 12yr and this trend is likely to continue. Since 1980–1981 the oil import bill has been consuming more than 50% of yearly export earning. As there is not much scope for a sizeable increase in the domestic supply of gas, oil, or hydroelectric power, increasing the use of domestic coal is necessary to avoid excessive dependence on imported energy. Coal gasification to produce substitute natural gas (SNG) is not economical at present coal production costs, due to the low cost of indigenous gas and subsidized furnace oil and kerosene and the high SNG production costs from the technology available at present. If domestic prices of gas and liquid fuels are increased to the level of current international oil prices and developments in coal gasification technologies can bring about expected reductions in capital costs and improvements in efficiency, coal gasification may become economical in Pakistan. It is estimated that indigenous coal resources can potentially supply 3–6 million TCE/yr of SNG by 2000—about 10–20% of the substitutable fossil fuels demand for that year—along with meeting about 9% of the electricity demand.