On May 13, the leaders of the State Capital Management Committee (SCMC), the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) and Thai Binh provincial People’s Committee were present at Thai Binh 2 Thermal-power Plant witnessed an important event - the ceremony to connect to the national power grid with oil for Unit 1, marking the first time the project is generating electricity for the national grid.

After the '3-2-1' countdown, the plant’s leaders and workers clapped loudly for what once seemed impossible.

When leaving the central control room, a leader of Thai Binh Provincial People's Committee could not hide his emotions and said to the leader of SCMC who was walking next to him: "I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. More than 10 years.”

The project was involved in many scandals. Many former leaders of PetroVietnam and PVC, including Dinh La Thang and Trinh Xuan Thanh, have been sent to prison.

Thai Binh 2 project once experienced tough days when there were two viewpoints – to continue or to stop implementing the $2 billion project. By that time, VND32 trillion had been poured into the project. Stopping the project would have meant losing all that money. Meanwhile, if continuing implementation, the project would face problems related to investment.

In late July 2019, four Members of the Party Central Committee were present at Thai Binh 2 plant to discuss the solutions to rescue the project. Tran Sy Thanh, who was then Chair of PetroVietnam, said: “All the members of the Board of Members have signed, but ministries and branches are still hesitant to make decisions. We are responsible before the Party and the people about the use of capital. However, please turn the green light for us to go ahead.”

At that moment, the money for the project execution was ready for disbursement, but there was not a mechanism to pour the money into the project.

Only a long time after that meetin did the project get the green light and the execution of the work continued.

Witnessing the national grid connection of Unit 1, PetroVietnam’s Chair Hoang Quoc Vuong was pleased. When he was Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Vuong was one of several officials who suggested many policies for the project to be implemented so that the tens of trillions of dong poured into the project would not be wasted.

This is an important milestone which paves the way for the next steps and prepares for commercial operation in 2022. The workload ahead is huge which requires the project management board and EPC contractor to closely cooperate.

The next steps

To date, more than 93 percent of general workload has been implemented. The figures are 99.9 percent for the design, 97.3 percent for procurement, 40 percent for trial run and 93.9 percent for construction and installation.

There is a huge workload that needs to be implemented to complete the project in 2022, according to Nguyen Hung Dung from PetroVietnam, head of the project steering committee. There has been a long period of difficulties because of the pandemic, material supply interruptions and difficulties in workforce arrangements.

However, electricity generation with coal is even more important, which is a challenge for PetroVietnam.

Dung said Thai Binh 2 would use domestic coal. To prepare coal supply for the power plant, PetroVietnam has worked with the Vietnam Coal and Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin). The two sides have reached consensus on the agreement to provide coal to the plant.

According to Pham Trung Kien, CEO of PETROCONs, the EPC contractor, 60 percent of the coal and limestone transport system has been implemented. The coal transport system was installed under the supervision of a foreign contractor.

The Government has urged to speed up the project.

On May 8, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the Government’s delegation examined the project.

Prior to that, Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh visited the construction site four times over six months to examine the execution of the project.

Thai Binh 2 power project is marching toward the finish, and is expected to generate more electricity for the northern region, which faces an electricity shortage.

Luong Bang