A South Korean energy development firm has signed an agreement with the Pakistan government for a stake in a coal mine in the Thar desert region.

South Korea's Pan Energy Development Co with UAE's Bin Din Group had secured the stake in coal blocks in the area, which has about 2.56 billion tonnes of estimated reserves, about 40 times the amount of coal used each year by local generators in South Korea.

The Thar region, east of the Karachi is reported to have the world's largest coal reserves of about 100 billion tonnes or more.

PEDCO said that the Pakistan government is requesting two coal power plants with 500,000 kilowatts capacity and the firm is closely in talks with state-power monopoly Korea Electric Power Corp.

PEDCO expects coal production of 2 million tonnes by 2011 from the blocks, and 10 million tonnes from 2015.

(Sourced from Reuters)