Karachi, November 12, 2021 (PPI-OT):OICCI Vice-President, Ghias Khan and CE/Secretary General, OICCI, M. Abdul Aleem, held an interactive session with the senior media representatives in Islamabad, to unveil the salient features of ‘OICCI Energy Recommendations 2021’, on November 11, 2021. They were accompanied by Asim Murtaza Khan, Ahsan Syed Zafar and Yasir Ali.

The OICCI recommendations focuses on implementing an efficient and cost-effective energy supply chain, while increasing the share of green energy sources to meet the environment and sustainability milestones. The report includes separate proposals for the Power, Upstream, Downstream, LNG, and Renewable workstreams. The detailed recommendations have already been presented to Ministry of Energy and other relevant stakeholders.

Ghias Khan emphasized, that “OICCI’s proposed recommendations are the collective view of leading energy sector professionals associated with OICCI members. We are confident that the proposed recommendations will be instrumental in GOP’s continued endeavour towards reforming the overall energy sector and bringing it at par with international standards. These steps shall also be indispensable in meeting the growing energy demand in the country at an optimal cost, making us internationally competitive for export and primed for the economic growth of the country”.

Abdul Aleem added that “Pakistan should leverage the global resolve to combat climate change and take benefit of the pool of funds available for investment in renewable energy (RE), such as Green Climate Fund (GCF), to underwrite debt issued by local/foreign banks, that will eventually encourage more investments and grow the RE footprint resulting in lower cost of power. Furthermore, increasing power generation from Renewable Energy is also critical for achieving net zero carbon emission by 2050 as per the Paris Climate Agreement”.

Further, highlights of the key energy recommendations, included in the report are given below:

Liberalization and transformation of power market into multi buyer-seller marketplace. This will create options for power purchasers and producers to enter bilateral deals (wheeling regime.)

Downstream policy framework and structure should be revised to exhaustively cover all aspect of governance including, but not limited to, price structure, supply chain management focusing on logistics infrastructure, import dependency and building strategic stocks.

There should be regular revisions in the downstream price structure to ensure it remains reflective of actual costs to the companies on priority basis, followed by complete deregulation of MS and HSD that constitute about 80% of total petroleum products consumption.

There is need to fast track all projects that will create new pipeline capacity for new LNG terminal developers and/or existing terminals going into expansion.

Pakistan should leverage the global resolve to combat climate change and take benefit of pool of funds available for investment in renewable energy such as Green Climate Fund (GCF) to lower the cost of power, modernize the national grid; and enact necessary structural reforms.

There is an urgent need to refresh the bidding process for granting exploration licenses. Interest by local / foreign E and P companies has declined owing to low potential of the offered blocks.

The OICCI team appreciated Government issuing licenses/ approvals for 2 new LNG terminal developers last year, and asked the authorities to facilitate the existing customers at LNG terminals to sign off on the Terminal Coordination Agreement (TCA), to address the shortages that is likely to occur till such time these terminals come online.

After several questions put by the media relating to the Energy recommendations presented by the OICCI team, the meeting was concluded by Ghias Khan informing, that OICCI members believe in the future of Pakistan, and also appreciate the fact that the authorities are very receptive to implement Key Structural Reforms to resolve Pakistan’s Long term to medium term Energy challenges.

The OICCI Energy Recommendations 2021 is the collective effort of the 33 OICCI members who are associates of leading international players working in the areas of oil exploration, refining, marketing and distribution, coal mining, and power generation segments. These OICCI members cumulatively contribute over Rs.700 billion to the national exchequer annually and employ a large number of skilled and professional staff.

For more information, contact:
Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI)
Chamber of Commerce Building, Talpur Road, P.O. Box 4833,
Karachi – 74000, Pakistan
Tel: +92-21-32410814-5
Fax: +92-21-32427315
Email: info@oicci.org
Website: http://oicci.org/