October 08, 2008

Exploration starts at two new coal blocks in Thar

Daily Times reported that Deep Rock Drilling has started drilling work recently for coal exploration at 2 new blocks of the Thar coal sites.

As per report, Sindh Coal Authority had awarded drilling work contract to Deep Rock Drilling at Block VII and VIII and it has started drilling 80 holes in both the blocks, which would be completed in 3 months.

The sources said that the work on developing further 2 blocks at Thar had been started early in 2008 and 100 square kilometers area is allocated for each block. The entire development work at the blocks would be completed by end of 2008. The SCA has developed 6 blocks so far at the Thar where an estimated 12 billion tonnes reserves of coal.

Sindh Coal Authority had awarded licenses at 6 blocks to American AES, Hassan Associates, Australian based Couger Energy, Sindh Carbon Energy Limited, Associated Group and Thar Coal Mine Company.

The Geological Survey of Pakistan had discovered the huge deposits of coal at Thar in 1992 during the research program assisted by United States Geological Survey. The area of Thar coal is spread over 9100 square kilometers with dimension of 140 kilometers in north south and 65 kilometers in east west. Geologists believed that the estimated reserves of Thar are about 175.506 billion tonnes of coal and are sufficient to meet fuel requirements of Pakistan for centuries, having potential for generating about 100,000MW of electricity.