Pakistani magnate Hussain Dawood has divested Engro Energy’s coal mining and power generation arm, a pivotal contributor to the country’s energy landscape over the last half-decade.
The thermal unit was offloaded to Liberty Power Holding Pvt. and a consortium of three partner firms for 34.75 billion rupees ($125 million), marking one of Pakistan’s most significant acquisitions in recent times, as per Topline Securities, a brokerage based in Karachi.
Following the news, shares of Engro Corp., the parent company, surged to a record high, closing with a gain of 0.83%.
Dawood played an important role in unlocking Pakistan’s vast coal reserves – which are among the largest lignite coal deposits globally – as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), initiated in 2013. Pakistan has emerged as a primary destination for China’s infrastructure endeavours, with completed projects including power plants valued at $25 billion since the BRI’s inception.
Engro, a major conglomerate in Pakistan with interests spanning fertilizer manufacturing, chemicals, and telecommunications, had previously divested its subsidiary Hub Power Co., the operator of a 1,200-megawatt oil-fired power plant, in 2018. The new sale of thermal assets is aimed at optimising capital and resource allocation, as stated in the announcement.
Engro made its foray into the energy sector in 2008 with the establishment of Engro Powergen Qadirpur Ltd, a power asset leveraging flare gas to address Pakistan’s acute energy shortage.
Since then, the conglomerate has achieved milestones in the energy domain, including the exploration of Thar coal deposits and subsequent expansions under the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), as well as the establishment of two 330 MW power plants under Engro Powergen Thar Limited (EPTL).
These energy ventures consistently rank among the most efficient, reliable, and compliant in terms of global safety and environmental benchmarks. Through its initiatives, Engro Energy illuminates the lives of approximately 9 million people annually and has facilitated a net import substitution of around $1.5 billion since its establishment.
