Petrovietnam urges General Electric to help speed up Vietnam’s first LNG-to-power plants

Petrovietnam has urged American conglomerate General Electric (GE) to help expedite the progress of key projects, including the complex featuring Nhon Trach 3 and Nhon Trach 4 – Vietnam’s first LNG-to-power plants.

A Saturday statement cited Petrovietnam chairman Le Manh Hung calling for work on the projects to be speeded up after the state-owned giant signed a memorandum of understanding earlier in the week with GE Digital International LLC on digitalization solutions for electricity and oil-gas sectors.

The $1.4-billion 1,500 MW Nhon Trach 3 and Nhon Trach 4 LNG-to-power complex, the first of its kind in Vietnam, is invested in by Petrovietnam subsidiary Petrovietnam Power (PV Power).

Petrovietnam Gas (PV Gas), the gas arm of Petrovietnam, and PV Power are set to sign a gas sales agreement (GSA) for the project next quarter.

Nhon Trach 3 is scheduled to “first fire” next month and launch commercial operations in April 2025. The corresponding timeline for Nhon Trach 4 is late December and July 2025.

General Electric is providing gas turbines, power generators, stream turbines, heat recovery equipment and transformers for the project. In November 2022, its subsidiaries, GE Global Parts & Products GmbH and GE International Inc., signed with PV Power a long-term maintenance agreement (LTMA) for the power complex.

Hung said Petrovietnam and GE can cooperate further in many sectors, including power generation, digitalization at power plants, offshore wind power, nuclear power, transitioning into hydrogen power and carbon capture-storage (CCS). These activities are in line with Petrovietnam’s future development path, he added.