Vietnam Electricity wants gas for power generation to minimize shortage

State utility Vietnam Electricity (EVN) has asked Petrovietnam's two leading fertilizer subsidiaries, Phu My and Ca Mau, to provide gas for electricity generation instead of producing fertilizers and chemicals to minimize power shortage in May and June.

Vietnam is facing heat waves and drought triggered by El Nino, together with electricity shortage as reservoirs across the country serving hydropower plants have become dry while coal imports from Indonesia for coal-fired power plants have not arrived yet.

Consequently, EVN has to work out ways to minimize power shortage, including supply from gas sources. Therefore, EVN is expecting state-owned Petrovietnam and the oil and gas group's two fertilizer producers to give a helping hand.

EVN suggested the two Petrovietnam subsidiaries halt operations until the end of May. The first, Phu My, is located in Ba Ria-Vung Tau and the second, Ca Mau is in the province of the same name. Both provinces are in southern Vietnam.

In the first four months of 2023, dry weather occurred across the country causing a serious shortage of water for hydropower reservoirs, while the unavailability of supply resources such as coal, oil, and gas for power production and the prolonged breakdown of some thermal power plants caused a huge shortage of electricity supply.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, at a meeting between permanent cabinet members, ministries, and agencies late Thursday, stressed that all resources must be used to assure sufficient electricity for production, businesses, and daily use. He said electricity supply sources in Vietnam have to leave no stone unturned to ensure adequate supply during the current heat wave across the country.

The PM asked EVN to maximize supply from hydropower plants and conduct rapid negotiations for temporary buying prices with wind and solar power projects that missed the government's preferential feed-in-tariffs (FiT) scheme.

One day before that, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade to study a pricing mechanism similar to that applied to build-transfer (BT) transport projects for wind and solar power projects that missed out on preferential FiT. They are called transitional projects.