NTDC secures Rs18 billion financing to install transmission line in Sindh

LAHORE: State-owned National Transmission and Despatch Company Limited (NTDCL) secured Rs18 billion in financing from a consortium of local banks to install 250-kilometre 500-kilovolt transmission line from Thar Desert to Matiari district, its spokesman said on Friday. 

The spokesman said the total cost of the transmission line project is estimated at Rs22.3 billion.   The company solicited debt arrangement offers from various financial institutions for Rs18 billion along with a letter of credit facility of more than Rs15 billion for building the transmission network. 

The consortium of Askari Bank Limited and Faysal Bank Limited and Dubai Islamic Bank Pakistan Limited (as the shariah advisor) won the mandate after a competitive bidding process in December 2015 to finance the project. 

The National Transmission and Despatch Company Limited’s official said the transaction is a combination of Islamic (Rs11.5 billion) and conventional mode of financing (Rs6.5 billion). “These transactions have a door-to-door tenor of 15 years.”

Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company is expected to finish the first phase of its 660 megawatts Thar coal-fired power project by 2019.

The company completed more than 10 percent of the work for coal mining and power plant.

Two more power plants (330MW each) would be completed by December 2019. Five more coal-fired power plants would be set up in block II of Thar by December 2021, expanding the total production capacity of Thar coal-based electricity to around 3,000MW.

 “The National Transmission and Despatch Company Limited is proactively working to improve and enhance its existing power transmission and dispatch network,” he said.

One of the projects was the development and construction of 250km-long 500kV double circuit transmission line from Engro Thar to Matiari, Hyderabad switching station and two line bays/shunt reactor at Matiari switching station.

He said the transmission line is of ‘great significance’ to the country as it will evacuate around 1,200 megawatts of electricity from Thar where power projects are being set up to utilise indigenous coal as the primary fuel. 

On Wednesday, Askari Bank Limited hosted a signing ceremony to mark the financial close of the transaction.