$4B LNG-fired plant delayed by electricity price haggle

By An Minh April 10, 2023 | 07:59 pm PT

A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker is tugged towards a thermal power station in Futtsu, east of Tokyo, Japan, November 13, 2017. Photo by Reuters/Issei Kato.

Construction of the US$4-billion Bac Lieu liquefied natural gas-fired power plant in the south has not begun even three years after its approval due to a disagreement in electricity selling price.

National utility Vietnam Electricity (EVN) and the investor, Singapore’s Delta Offshore Energy, have held nine rounds of negotiations but failed to agree on the rate, Bac Lieu Province chairman Pham Van Thieu said Monday.

Other issues yet to be resolved are a mechanism for currency exchange and Delta’s demand for the government to guarantee loans obtained for the project, he added.

He could not say when construction would begin.

"The province has done what it can and completed all procedures within its power. The knots now lie in the administrative procedures of the ministry and central government."

The plant, with a capacity of 3,200 MW, will be the biggest ever foreign project in the Mekong Delta.

Delta received general investment approval from the province in 2020, and the original plan was for it to acquire all necessary permits to start construction within 12 months of the approval.

It had 36 months to finish construction and lay LNG pipelines, begin operation the first turbine by the end of this year and reach the promised 3,200-MW output by 2027.

U.S. firm Bechtel is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the plant.