The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) on March 11, 2022 released a document on the supply of goal for electricity production, affirming that coal must be provided sufficiently.

In the document, the ministry asked Vinacomin and Dong Bac Corporation to promptly apply measures to ensure coal production capacity, and take all possible solutions to provide coal to power plants with contracts signed before, especially build – operation – transfer (BOT) (by thermopower plants using domestic coal.

MOIT asked the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) to instruct the National Load Dispatch Center to have dispatching measures and plans on monthly electricity mobilization to coal-fired power plants so the plants can arrange enough coal for electricity generation.

Prior to that, the ministry received documents from the owners of thermopower plants reporting that Vinacomin and Dong Bac Corporation did not provide enough coal in the first two months of the year under procurement contracts.

The power plants belonging to EVN reported that the total amount of coal that Vinacomin and DongBac provided to them in February was just 69.24 percent of the amount shown in the contract and much higher than the demand from the plants.

Particularly, Vinh Tan1 BOT plant has not had enough coal as shown in the coal supply contract signed in 2013, and the Vietnamese side may have to compensate if production has to stop because of the lack of fuel.

According to Vinacomin, one of the reasons behind the lack of coal for electricity production recently is the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to a lack of workers at coal mines.

The pandemic developments remain complicated and the number of cases has been increasing sharply after Tet. Meanwhile, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has had a serious impact on the world’s energy market.

Since the last days of February, the prices of fuel products such as oil, gas, petrol and coal in many international markets have been escalating. It is now more difficult to carry fuel under all transport modes due to the sanctions, including ships carrying coal.

This not only leads to a decrease in the amount of coal in circulation in the market, but also an increase in coal prices in the world market. 

Luong Bang

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