GE announced on Friday the completion and commencement of commercial operations at the 1,320-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant of China Power Hub Generation Company Private Limited (CPHGC) in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

CPHGC is a joint venture of China Power International Holding Limited (CPIH) and Pakistan's Hub Power Company (HUBCO).

GE said in a press statement that it supplied the project's engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors Northwest Electric Power Design Institute Co. Ltd. (NWEPDI) and Tianjin Electric Power Construction Company (TEPC) with two units each of supercritical steam turbines, generators and boilers for the project, adding that the supply contract was signed in 2016.

CPHGC CEO Zhao Yonggang said in the statement that the "landmark project" would help Pakistan on its energy mix ambitions and tackle its electricity shortfall.

Construction of the CPHGC Power Plant - two units of 660 MW each and a dedicated jetty, at Hub in the Lasbella District of Balochistan - began in March 2017, according to the press statement.

Massimo Gallizioli, CEO of GE Steam Power in the Middle East, North Africa & Turkey, said the CPHGC power plant "underlined the strong collaboration among GE and its partners," bringing together local project management with Chinese engineering expertise and GE power generation technologies that were developed by advanced research and development teams based in Europe and China.

The power plant, the statement continued, is one of the infrastructure ventures supported under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a large development megaproject that aims to connect Gwadar Port in southern Pakistan to Xinjiang, China's northwestern autonomous region, through transportation and energy networks. The project is expected provide electricity to four million households in Pakistan.

(Writing by Syed Ameen Kader; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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