Taiwan Power in hunt for a liquefied natural gas supplier

State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) plans to open a third round of bidding to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to its new Tatan (大潭) thermal power plant, after revising rules twice and canceling two auctions, a Taiwan official said yesterday.

"Originally we set the date for the international bids before the end of this year," said Huang Hui-yu (黃惠予), head of Taipower's public relationships division. "But the specific date for the bids will depend on the Cabinet's decision."

The Tatan plant is expected to start commercial operation at the end of 2005, Huang said.

The LNG purchase by Taipower has recently made headlines in the local media after Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said on Sunday that Taiwan may buy about NT$400 billion of LNG from Indonesia over a 25-year period.

Lu broke Beijing's diplomatic stranglehold with a controversial four-day trip to Indonesia last week.

But Huang denied the company has made a decision to award the 25-year LNG procurement contract to Indonesia in the wake of Lu's visit, saying only that Indonesia has been one of the major LNG suppliers to Taiwan.

Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) said earlier yesterday that Indonesia stands a good chance of winning the LNG procurement contract since the country has rich natural gas resources.

But he emphasized that Taipower will stick to its original plan to hold an open tender to choose a suitable supplier.

At present, several international petroleum suppliers, including ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalFina Elf and BP, are also vying for the lucrative LNG contracts for the power plant located in Taoyuan County.

To facilitate the Tatan power plant, Tung Ting Gas Corp (東鼎) is building an LNG receiving terminal, including three large LNG storage tanks capable of receiving 3 million tonnes per annum of LNG. According to Tung Ting, it has concluded a memorandum of understanding for LNG supply with RasGas II, joint venture of Qatar Petroleum and Exxon-Mobil and is expected to receive LNG from the second half of 2004.