Malaysia’s Janakuasa: Huge power project on track

The Malaysian power generation company said the project’s total investment capital was about USD2 billion, of which USD1.5 billion will be go to the engineering-procurement-construction contract.

Ti Chee Liang, Janakuasa president and chief executive officer, said his company began venturing into Vietnam’s power industry in January 2009 when the Vietnamese Government awarded Duyen Hai 2 project to it.

This is the first project with Janakuasa’s involvement in Vietnam.

He said the EPC contract would be awarded to Alstom as a fixed price full turnkey deal and that his company expected to issue a notice to proceed by the third quarter of 2010 for the EPC contractor to begin engineering work and site preparation.

“The feasibility study (FS) has been submitted to the Ministry of Industry and Trade in February 2009 and we are waiting for the ministry’s consideration and approval,” he told reporters in Hanoi prior to the opening of his company’s Hanoi office last week.

“The opening of Janakuasa’s operations in Vietnam will propel advancements of next steps for the project, such as the application for the build-own-transfer (BOT) contract and to begin PPA (power purchase agreement) negotiations with EVN.”

Construction of Duyen Hai 2 is planned to start by 2011 and upon completion in 2014-15, the power plant will deliver all electricity for sale at the plant boundary, which Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) will take responsibility for linking the power plant to the national power grid.

The project is part of the Government’s Power Development Master Plan No.6 in dealing with the highly increasing power demand in the country, said the president.

According to EVN estimates, power demand in Vietnam is expected to grow at a fast pace of about 17-22% during the 2006-15 period.

The demand for power in Vietnam is dramatically rising, but to date there have been only two foreign joint ventures succeeding in carrying out power generation projects in Vietnam over the last 10 years.

The company signed in January 2009 a USD 1.8 million consulting service contract with Power Engineering Consulting Joint Stock Company 2 (PECC2) for Duyen Hai 2. PECC2 is a leader in the Vietnamese power sector specializing in the services of survey, design, consultancy and supervision for power projects.

Under the consulting service contract, PECC2 will undertake all aspects of the documents required for the pre-investment stage. The scope will include preparations of FS, investment documents to support the licensing process, and obtaining an investment license from the Government.

Ti Chee Liang of Janakuasa told the Daily that his company was seeking a “win-win” situation with EVN in the USD2 billion power plant project. “We can make it (the project) happen with the win-win solution.”