UAE said to be willing to undertake refinery project in Pakistan

Jamil Ahmed Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said that the UAE is willing to undertake the Khalifa Refinery project in Pakistan, which will require an investment of US$6 billion. The project had been put on hold a few times since the Pakistani government approved it in October 2007, because of various issues, including the lack of gas supply, security, poor governance and circular debt. Khan said that during a recent Joint Ministerial Commission (JMC) between Pakistan and the UAE held in Dubai, the UAE expressed its willingness to start working on the project. According to Khan, a 500-megawatt power plant is also included in the Khalifa Refinery project. The proposed Khalifa Coastal Refinery will be constructed at the Khalifa Point in Hub, Balochistan. If it pushes through, the project will be the largest, single foreign investment in the country, with a capacity of 250,000 barrels per day, or the equivalent of 13 million tons of petroleum products per year. Pak-Arab Refinery will have a 24% stake in the refinery and the International Petroleum Investment Company of Abu Dhabi will have 76%. (March 8, 2012)