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BP-owned plant keeps the lights burning in Hanoi

A US$450 million gas-fired power plant in Vietnam built and owned by British energy giant BP and other foreign investors was officially opened yesterday.

The Phu My 3 power plant, located in the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, south of Ho Chi Minh City, began commercial operations on Thursday.

The launch ceremony was attended by Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai.

The plant has a design capacity of 716.8 megawatts and has raised Vietnam's power generation capacity by almost 10 percent, the Phu My 3 BOT Power Co Ltd said in a statement.

The plant, which is able to consume about 3 million cubic meters of gas per day at full load, is the first foreign-invested build-operate-transfer power plant in the communist nation.

It is equally owned by units of BP, Singapore's SembCorp Industries and the Japanese consortium of Kyushu Electric Power Co and Sojitz Corp.

"We have been toiling day and night with an aim to bring the largest private sector power plant into operation to meet the increasing demand for power of the country and our mission has been accomplished," said Mary Shafer-Malicki, director general of BP Vietnam.

The plant, which took 26 months to build, is fueled by gas from the Nam Con Son basin, 370km of the coast, under a 20-year agreement with the state-owned PetroVietnam.

After that, the plant will be handed over to the Vietnamese government.

The US$1.3 billion Nam Con Son project is led by BP PetroVietnam, India's ONGC Videsh and ConocoPhilips of the US are the other investors.

Electricity demand has risen on average by 13 percent to 15 percent annually in the past few years in Vietnam creating urgent need for more infrastructure development.

According to government estimates, about 70 billion kilowatts to 80 billion kilowatts of power will be needed in 2010, with the figure increasing to between 160 billion kilowatts and 200 billion kilowatts by 2020.
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