Malaysia investor to complete site clearance for $3 bln thermal power project in Mekong Delta

Malaysia’s Toyo Ink Group Berhad is ready to pay and complete site clearance for its VND72 trillion ($3.05 billion) Song Hau 2 thermal power plant in Hau Giang province, said a company representative.

Malaysia’s Toyo Ink Group Berhad is ready to pay and complete site clearance for its VND72 trillion ($3.05 billion) Song Hau 2 thermal power plant in Hau Giang province, said a company representative.

At a meeting on Tuesday with authorities from the Mekong Delta province, the firm added that it is waiting for instructions from the Ministry of Industry and Trade to process compensation for resettlement.

Song Hau 1 thermal power plant in Hau Giang province, Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Photo courtesy of Petrovietnam.

The project will impact 689 households with total compensation for resettlement of VND708 billion ($29.97 million), according to Hau Giang authorities. So far, site clearance for 79.21 out of the 116.61 hectares designated for the project has been completed.

Hau Giang province and the Malaysia investor signed an agreement for the 2,120 MW project under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) format in December 2015. The project missed the initial deadline for completion in the second quarter of 2022, partly due to the investor being unable to meet its capital obligations.

The coal-fired thermal power plant is one of five thermal power projects under consideration for removal from the national draft power plan VIII (PDP VIII), due to problems in implementation and capital arrangements, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Toyo Ink and Song Hau 2 Power Company signed a temporary engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement with the Sunway-PECC2 Consortium in relation to the Song Hau 2 thermal power plant project last December. 

The interim EPC agreement will be terminated if the contract is not executed by the parties within six months from the date of signing, Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama quoted a Toyo Ventures release as saying.

Also in Hau Giang province, construction of the $2 billion Song Hau 1 thermal power plant, invested by state-owned Petrovietnam, started in 2015 and was inaugurated in July 2022. This shows Vietnamese firms’ ability to handle large-scale projects on their own, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said at the opening ceremony.