Vietnam Electricity gets okay for $1.2 bln power project in Mekong Delta

Can Tho has agreed in principle for state utility Vietnam Electricity (EVN) to build a significant gas-fired power plant in the Mekong Delta province.

The O Mon III power plant project in the southern city’s O Mon district would cost more than $1.19 billion to develop, with $428.2 million from EVN and $762.3 million from mobilized capital sources, the municipal Department of Planning and Investment said Monday, citing a city decision.

The project’s designed generation capacity remains unknown. However, the timeframe includes approval of a feasibility study in the fourth quarter of 2022, groundbreaking in the first quarter of 2025, gas input in the third quarter of 2027, and commercial operation in the fourth quarter that year.

The O Mon III power plant is part of the O Mon power center in the district, which uses crude gas from Petrovietnam’s offshore Block B gas project in southern Vietnam. The center will cost a total $6.5 billion to complete, with five power plants altogether, each requiring about $1.2-1.3 billion. O Mon I is operating, O Mon II is under construction, while O Mon IV will follow the third, and O Mon V after the fourth.

Block B is one of the two biggest gas projects in Vietnam, with a total investment of $10 billion. With an annual output of five billion cubic meters, it supplies crude gas for the major power center in Can Tho, and Ca Mau gas-power-fertilizer complex in Ca Mau, Vietnam’s southernmost province.