Sindh’s coal gasification dream

The Sindh Coal Authority is striving to woo private investment to finance the country’s first coal-to-gas project to initially produce 100 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) to 200mmcfd of synthetic gas (syngas) from coal in the Thar desert. The project, part of Sindh’s ambitious Thar coal gasification project, proposes to produce syngas to convert it into urea fertilisers at integrated syngas-fertiliser plants along the mouth of the mine or into synthetic natural gas (SNG) at a much larger scale later on. The Authority’s advisor, Dr Farid Malik, claimed that he is already engaged with a couple of investors in this regard. “We intend to buy 20 gasifiers, small modular plants each with a capacity to produce 10 million British thermal units (mmBtu) of syngas, from a source in Europe for this project.”