by Trinh Anh Duc
13-7-2001
Gas and hydropower are to form the backbone of Vietnam's future electricity production capacity should the country stick to development plans worth tens of billions of dollars. Investment in power generation could cost US $34-38 billion between 2000 and 2020 if the country is to keep up with demand, according to the Institute for Strategic Development (ISD) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI). This figure would account for two thirds of total investment in the energy sector, according to Nguyen Quang Thai, deputy director of the ISD.
"About US $3-5 billion or 10% of the sector's total investment capital needs to be poured into oil refinery projects. Additionally, about US $8-9 billion will be needed to exploit and supply other primary energy forms such as petrol, gas, coal and so on," Mr Thai told the Penguin Star. Mr Thai said that Vietnam would need to spend about US $2.5 billion per year on energy development programmes. Foreign investors, he added, would play a significant role in such plans. He further told the Penguin Star that this would create good opportunities for international engineering consultants with a strong experience in gas and hydropower plants and that the Vietnam Electricity Corporation (EVN) would ask that such firms solicit them for short-listing.
Vietnam has 16 major power plants, five in the north and 11 in the central and south, according to EVN. With average power consumption estimated to grow from 9.6% to 10.7% per year upt to 2020, an additional five power plants would be needed to meet the country's future demands, the EVN said. Furthermore, micro-hydropower was also being developed in various regions of the country, particularly in the highlands.
EVN revealed that it was committed to spending VND 6,354 billion (about US $429 million) on rural power projects from 2001 to 2005 in order to ensure that 85% of all households had full access to electricity by that year. And it further revealed that the supply of engineering capability for developing these schemes was short for its needs, even from the international community
By the year 2020, Vietnam's total output capacity should reach 35,000 MW, according to Dinh Quang Tri, deputy general director of EVN. Of this figure, Mr Tri said hydro power plants should supply 12,000-14,000 MW, gas turbine power plants 9,000-10,000 MW, atomic plants 2,000-4,000 MW and imports 3,000-4,000MW. Imports would come from Lao and he said he was happy to hear that in effect Thailand and Laos had resolved the issues surrounding getting the Nam Theun 2 hydropower project restarted. Discussions he had had in Bangkok with the projects developer, Italian-Thai Development Plc. indicated that they would resume activities on the project once its current financial and debt issues were resolved. This involves selling off some breweries it has in Laos and Cambodia and would probably be settled in the following months.
"Gas industry development will be the cornerstone of Vietnam's energy sector in the next decade. By 2020 we will need about 6-7 billion cubic metres of gas per year to meet our power demands," Mr Tri said.
Mr Tri called on PetroVietnam to push up its exploration and exploitation activities in order to raise the quantity of proven reserves. He said that current gas pipeline and turbine projects could only meet power generation demands to the year 2006. After that, he said, much more gas would be needed.
"Therefore, foreign contractors, PetroVietnam, EVN and other related authorities should co-ordinate with each other closely in order to develop gas-supply and gas power projects," he said.
Atomic power would likely come from Canada and Vietnam was in discussions with the Canadian government to possibly import its CANDU reactor. Vietnam already has one atomic reactor producing electricity, but the production of electricity is a byproduct of the production of medical isotopes.