Quang Ninh wants 1.5 GW LNG power project to kick off construction

Quang Ninh's administration has asked the consortium investing in a 1.5-gigawatt LNG-to-power plant in the northern province to speed up the project's preparatory work.

The consortium - a joint venture between Tokyo Gas and Marubeni of Japan and two Vietnamese firms, PV Power and Colavi JSC - received an investment license last October for the project, estimated to cost about $2 billion to build in Cam Pha town.

Once completed, it would be the first power plant using imported LNG in the northern region.

To date, the consortium has yet to set up a legal entity to develop the project, and a feasibility study is not available.

The feasibility study deadline is this October for Ministry of Industry and Trade appraisal to be completed in December, Quang Ninh’s administration said.

In addition, the people’s committee suggested that the consortium closely follow the Ministry of Transport and Vietnam Maritime Administration (VMA) on their decisions regarding a location for its LNG terminal.

The committee assigned its department of transport to assist the investor in working with authorities of the ministry and VMA to handle LNG terminal-related procedures.

Regarding site clearance, Cam Pha town’s administration was requested to hand over a clear site to the investor by November.

Up to now, no LNG gas power plants operate in Vietnam. In all, nine LNG-to-power projects have received investment certificates or in-principle agreement as independent power producers. Of these five found investors and could enter the phase of negotiating a PPA with EVN.

Others like LNG Long Son, LNG Ca Na, LNG Long An and LNG Quang Ninh are yet to find investors or only officially announced their investors recently.