Lucky Cement commissions 660MW coal power plant

KARACHI: Lucky Electric Power Company Limited (LEPCL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lucky Cement, has successfully commissioned its 660MW supercritical, lignite coal-based power plant at Deh Ghangiaro, Bin Qasim, Karachi.

“The power plant was synchronised with the national grid towards the end of CY21 and since then has been involved in extensive testing and completing relevant inspections and commissioning; thereby, achieving the commercial operations date (COD) on March 21, 2022,” a bourse filing said.

The power plant has been designed to operate on Thar lignite coal, subject to its availability. However, during the interim period, it will mainly operate on imported lignite coal till the completion of Phase III of the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), which is expected in the second quarter of CY23.

“The addition of 660MW to the national grid will not only play a key role in increasing the energy security and prosperity of Pakistan but will also go on to reduce the cost of electricity and reliance on imported fuel after completion of Phase III of SECMC.”

With the completion of this project, Lucky Cement’s portfolio of businesses has further diversified and now consists of local and international cement operations, automobile, chemicals and agri sciences, mobile phone assembling and energy, in addition to the captive power plants operated by the company.

Lucky Cement expects lower prices for coal and better domestic demand for cement in FY23. The current retention prices for cement are Rs10,000/tonne for local and $36/tonne for export markets.

The company’s management shared that it has coal reserves for the next two months with very little quantity of Afghan coal at Karachi site, as it costs around Rs44k/tonne due to cost of inland freight.

However, for the Pezu Plant, the company is mixing 80 per cent Afghan coal, at present, the cost of which has been around Rs35k/tonne.

Lucky Cement has a 29MW gas-based power generation facility dedicated to supply 25MW and 5MW electricity to Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and K-Electric, respectively.

The 40MW dual-fired plants and 29MW gas-based generators are to cater to the company’s own needs. In addition, the company has WHR plants with a capacity of around 20MW. The company’s tyre derived fuel (TDF) and refuse derived fuel (RDF) plants for power generation are currently non-operational due to the shortage of raw material in recent times.

The company has a fully automated packaging facility for cement with its cement manufacturing plant. However, clinker is transported in simple plastic bags or even in loose form loaded directly onto 28 tonne containers.