$100-mn ethanol project hangs in balance

Karachi: A Swiss company's $100 million plan for setting up maize-based ethanol generation plant near Port Qasim has been jeopardised due to poor law and order situation in the country.

Sources in Sindh Environment and Alternative Energy Department said that the poor law and order and political instability have put the project in doldrums as the company is reluctant to invest in the country in present scenario.

Without naming the Swiss firm, sources said that a high-level delegation of the firm has called on Mohammadmian Soomro some six months back in Islamabad, when he was Senate Chairman to brief him about the project. Soomro had asked the delegation to work jointly with Board of Investment and Planning Commission to remove the financial and legal hitches in the plan.

Later, the Alternative Energy Development Board was asked to see the possibility of setting up the plant near Port Qasim, the sources said, adding that the AEDB had also started feasibility study of the project in collaboration with Swiss firm.

Sources said the firm was also intending to invest in large-scale projects in oil and gas sector. Sindh Alternative Energy department had also announced setting up of a $110 million ethanol plant on which AEDB was working but this project was also in doldrums owing to indifference of the officials concerned.