Advisers set conditions for LNG plants’ sale

Financial advisers of the National Power Parks Management Company Limited (NPPMCL) — which owns and operates two LNG-fired plants with a combined capacity of around 2,500 megawatts — have asked the government to immediately finalise gas-sale and power-purchase agreements, debt recapitalisation and payment mechanism if it wanted an early sale of the two units to Qatar. The government is trying to sell off the two power plants — the 1,223MW plant in Kasur’s Balloki area and the 1,230MW Haveli Bahadur Shah plant in Jhang — to Qatar on a government-to-government basis as part of the International Monetary Fund’s conditions and has already held a series of meetings with authorities in Doha. NPPMCL’s adviser Credit Suisse Singapore, which has been associated with the transaction since April 2019, has told Islamabad that finalising and executing the security package — involving gas-sale, power-purchase and implementation agreements (GSA, PPA and IA) — and resolving other central issues affecting privatisation, particularly payment of receivables, had been the “main reasons that have halted the NPPMCL transaction process”.