Chinese and Koreans eye giant Vietnamese power project

Chinese and South Korean firms want to invest in the $2.1 billion coal-fired power plant in Quang Ninh province. It is being built by the United States-based AES Corporation and its Vietnamese partner Vinacomin.

Quang Ninh’s Industry and Trade Department deputy general director Pham Quang Thai said China Investment Corporation’s leader recently paid a visit to the province to study investment opportunities, particularly the 1,200 megawatt Mong Duong 2 coal-fired power project.

In his meeting with the provincial leaders, CIC’s general director Kungsheng Fan stressed that Mong Duong 2 plant was among big-scaled projects in Vietnam that the corporation was interested in.

In April 2010, AES inked a build-operate-transfer agreement with the Vietnamese authorities to develop the Mong Duong 2 project, under which AES would contribute 90 per cent of the investment capital of the project while the remainder came from Vinacomin, the biggest state-run mineral company in Vietnam.
According to the Singapore-based AES executive vice president and managing director Mark Woodruff, the American investor would have 15 months from the BOT deal signing time to arrange finance for the project and another four years to complete the plant construction work.

“We would expect 75 per cent of the fund will come from international market’s loans while the remaining 25 per cent are from AES,” Woodruff said.

The Hanoi-based managing director of Mong Duong 2 project, Ian Fox, meanwhile confirmed that AES would maintain clear majority ownership and control of the project.

“I can only say that AES is confident of implementing the project on time and up to world-class standards,” Fox said.

According to Quang Ninh Planning and Investment Department general director Tran Duc Lam, on October 7, 2010 representative of South Korea-based Posco Power also arrived in the province to consider an opportunity to become an AES partner to develop the Mong Duong 2 project.

Posco Power is studying the project and will possibly sign a partnership agreement with AES to develop the project in a near future.

Under AES’ schedule, the Mong Duong 2 project will achieve commercial operations by the end of 2014, generating some 7.5 billion kilowatt hours of power a year and helping to ease power shortage in Vietnam then.