Geo-data firm Fugro extends presence in Vietnam amid growing interest in offshore wind

Netherlands-headquartered surveying company firm Fugro has extended a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Vietnam’s PTSC Geos & Subsea Services Co., Ltd (PTSC G&S) to continue marine site surveys for offshore wind amid high demand for geo-data.

Under the two-year agreement, Fugro’s full range of marine site characterization services and PTSC G&S’s local survey capabilities will support Vietnam’s growing offshore wind industry, the former said in a release.

The partnership between Fugro and PTSC G&S, set up in 2011, is supporting the country’s developing offshore wind industry and ambitious offshore wind targets.

The country’s eighth Power Development Plan (PDP8) announced in 2023 sets an initial target of approximately 6 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030, and 70 GW to 91.5 GW by 2050, which is critical for the country to achieve its goal of carbon neutral by 2050.

“Vietnam holds tremendous potential for offshore wind power and, after over a decade of working here with our local partner, PTSC G&S, we’re thrilled to be unlocking geo-data insights to help develop Vietnam’s offshore wind market,” said Jerry Paisley, Fugro’s regional strategic sales and marketing director.

Although Vietnam has big ambitions for offshore wind power and several foreign firms, including Marubeni and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), have considered large investments, no project is under construction.

In mid-2023, a senior executive of Denmark’s Orsted said the firm had paused market development activities in the Southeast Asian country.

At a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Australia last week, the Asia-Pacific head of Corio Generation, an offshore wind energy branch of Australia-based Macquarie's Green Investment Group, unveiled a plan to make infrastructure investments in Vietnam. Corio and EVNGENCO 3, a subsidiary of state utility Vietnam Electricity (EVN), signed an MoU on offshore wind power development in Vietnam.

In a talk with The Investor, Jacques-Etienne Michel, country managing director and country representative of Equinor Vietnam, suggested the Vietnamese government should implement PDP8 and scale up offshore wind power production as soon as possible.