'There is potential of $40 billion investment in power generation': Omar Ayub

September 2, 2019: Minister for Power and Petroleum Omar Ayub Khan has urged the domestic and foreign investors to take benefit from investment opportunities in the energy sector of Pakistan including the oil and gas.

He was addressing an Oil and Gas Conference organized by Petroleum Institute of Pakistan in Islamabad on Monday.

Omar Ayub said the present government has taken steps to ensure ease of doing business in the country and we are reducing red tapism to fully facilitate the investors. He said the variables of growth and better returns are available in the energy sector.

Omar Ayub said there is potential of forty billions dollars investment in power generation and twenty billion dollars each in transmission and distribution.

He said policies are also being framed to reinvigorate and give impetus to the energy sector. The draft of renewable energy has been presented to Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said this policy targets increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix to twenty percent by 2025 and thirty percent by 2030. He said the renewable energy is getting cheaper with technological development. Therefore, the government wants to increase its share in the overall energy production to reduce burden on the consumers.

The Minister announced that energy and petroleum policies are also on the cards. 

Omar Ayub noted that energy is a major driver of economic growth and cheaper electricity will give impetus to the economic growth.  He said dependency on imported fuel must go down.

In his remarks on the occasion, Special Assistant on Petroleum Nadeem Babar said the present government is striving to fix the longstanding problems of oil and gas sector to change the direction of the economy. He said we are cutting down regulations and approvals to facilitate the investors.  He stressed the country's refineries need to upgrade their refining facilities.

The Special Assistant said the government is encouraging the private sector to establish the LNG terminals without any financial commitments.

He said we are also striving to stabilize the price and supply of the LPG. He said we want to provide clean and safe fuel to the people who have no access to piped gas.