Vietnam to cut gas, electricity supply in Oct-Nov
HANOI - BP Plc , which operates Vietnam's only gas pipeline, will conduct maintainence on the system which will reduce electricity supply in the coming months, state oil Petrovietnam was quoted on Saturday as saying.
Petrovietnam said the maintenance would be conducted in block 6.1 in the Nam Con Son Basin and on the pipeline leading to gas-fired plants in the Phu My power complex in southern Vietnam, the An Ninh Thu Do (Capital Security) newspaper reported.
The work was "to ensure the safety of the gas supply system and to expand the capacity on supplying gas for power generation during the upcoming months of the dry season", the police-run newspaper quoted Petrovietnam as saying.
Officials could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
BP now sells all the gas output of around 13 million cubic metres per day from its offshore fields in the Nam Con Son Basin to Petrovietnam, which resells it to power plants.
The maintenance will cause a significant drop in power supply as output of the Phu My plants account for 40 percent of Vietnam's entire power system, the paper quoted the National Electricity System Regulatory Centre as saying.
The cut in gas may also cause unstable supply from the gas-fired turbines which would be switched to running on diesel, it said.
State utility Electricity of Vietnam plans to coordinate with related parties to arrange the cut in gas and power savings at the weekends next month and in November, the newspaper said.
But it said the cuts would not take place on the days BP tests raising its daily gas supply to 15 million cubic metres from Nam Con Son.
In March, BP signed an agreement with Petrovietnam and Electricity of Vietnam to expand gas output to new gas-fired power plants to be built in southern provinces, including in Ba Ria-Vung Tau, home to the Phu My complex.
The Southeast Asian country has rich natural gas reserves off its southern coast which Petrovietnam estimated at around 25 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.
Reuters - September 16, 2006.
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