The Green Leaves Getting Yellow

Though Independence Day is near and everyone is glued to paint Pakistan green from corporate marketing campaigns to individuals with lavish spending on the cards very few people in the country are genuinely concerned about dryness of Pakistan.

Pakistan has to face another setback in attracting foreign investment as China has shelved the Coastal Oil Refinery Project at Gwadar in strategically located Balochistan province, and has deleted it from the list of Financial Development Programme 2009-10 agreed between the two countries during President Pervez Musharraf's visit to China in February 2006.

The proposed Coastal Oil Refinery was part of China's plan to invest $12 billion in multiple projects in Pakistan. The refinery was designed to reach a daily output of 60,000 barrels crude oil per day. Pakistan and China had also considered a feasibility study for an oil pipeline from Gwadar port to western China to bring oil from the Persian Gulf. This proposal has also been shelved after China's refusal to set up oil refinery in Gwadar

Former President Pervez Musharraf had also offered a "trade corridor" to meet Beijing's energy requirements and offered help for the construction of the strategic pipeline from Gwadar to its borders, enabling it to import oil from Saudi Arabia. China is heavily dependent on oil from the Gulf that currently passes via a very long route, through the straits of Malacca under United States influence. After this oil reach Shanghai, or the Chinese East Coast, it has to cover thousands of miles inland to west of China. By using Coastal Oil Refinery at Gwadar port, Karakoram Highway (KKH) could be much safer, cheaper and shorter route to west of China for oil transportation.

UAE state run International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) has already suspended the work on the Khalifa oil refinery project after the controversy with Government of Pakistan. Due to shelving of Coastal Oil Refinery Project by China, Balochistan has been deprived of billions of dollars investment that could generate employment for local people.

In the era of darkness & gloom where domestic & international media is full of negativity about Pakistan, where our graph is going down & down in every social & economic indicator, I am still hopeful for good days to come, looking the sky for rain of blessing & prosperity so that our leaves may start getting green again. Inshallah!

Courtesy: News item appeared in Daily Business Recorder “China shelves refinery project at Gwadar” (05/08/2009)