Vinacomin’s project     

The Vietnam Coal and Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin) is building the 110MW Na Duong Thermopower Plant II in Lang Son with investment capital of $192 million which, once operational, will provide $650 million kwh a year to the national grid.

The project kicked off in 2015, but implementation is uncertain.

Regarding the EPC package of the major plant, Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and Vinacomin signed an EPC contract. However, the EPC contractor has not deployed implementation, so the project cannot proceed at the required pace.

EVN-Vinacomin issued a notice on invitation for bid for the second time, but until the time of bid closing (after it was extended until June 27, 2022), there had been no contractor submitting bids. 

After analyzing the real conditions, EVN decided to cancel the EPC package on June 27, 2022 and organized re-assessment of the requirements of the bidding documents to develop a plan for continued implementation in the time to come.

BOT projects

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) is supervising 20 BOT (build, operate, transfer) thermal power projects with total capacity of 26,000MW. 

One of the projects in the north is BOT Nam Dinh 1, which is under the negotiation. The capacity of the project is 2x600MW and the investment capital is $2.239 billion. On July 2, 2017, the project officially received an investment registration certificate from the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI).

The project is developed by the joint Taekwang Power (South Korea) and Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia), through the legal entity Nam Dinh First Power Holdings Pte, headquartered in Singapore.

However, no move to implement the project has been taken.

IPP projects

There are 10 projects with capacity of over 100MW under execution under the mode of IPP (independent power producer) with total capacity of 11,092MW. All the projects have been late because of long-lasting problems.

The status of some projects is as follows:

An Khanh thermopower project (1x650MW), Bac Giang province

The investor is following procedures on borrowing capital to make payments for the EPC contract from MB (the lead bank) and other banks for the syndicated loan. The first disbursement for the loan is slated for the first quarter of 2023.

To date, the compensation for site clearance of the major factory area and supporting works has nearly been completed. The investor is following procedures for the second-phase land leasing. For the area of the ash dump, the conveyor belt corridor, An Khanh Bac Giang Thermal Power JSC, is completing procedures for compensation for site clearance.

Hoi Xuan hydropower project, 102MW, Thanh Hoa province

Capitalized at VND3.3 trillion, the project started in March 2010 and was expected to provide 328.49 million kwh to the national grid every year. However, the construction has not been completed after 13 years.

The major items of the work have seen 98 percent of the workload completed. VNECO has resumed construction since November 2022, while the investor has committed to complete construction and put the plant into operation by the end of the first quarter 2024.

However, MOIT, in its document dated June 12, showed a different situation. The ministry said it received three reports from VNECO Hoi Xuan and the company only showed a financial solution for arranging additional capital to continue the remaining work of the projects.

The financial solution is being considered by Agribank, and no disbursement has been made.

According to the Thanh Hoa Department of Industry and Trade, after the meeting on March 9, 2023, the locality still had not received money from the investor to continue to implement the work of compensating for site clearance and resettlement in the affected areas.

Cong Thanh thermopower (1x600MW), Thanh Hoa province

The project received an investment registration certificate in November 2010 and a certificate on adjustments in June 2018 which said the commercial operation date would be December 2020.

However, not much work has been done. As the project is facing many difficulties in capital arrangement, the investor and Thanh Hoa provincial authorities have proposed shifting to use LNG as fuel and increasing the capacity to 1,500MW.

Under the amended seventh national power development plan, the total capacity of electricity generation sources, not including renewables which are under investment, are going to be invested in 2023 is 57,492MW (52 projects).

Of these, EVN implements 10 projects (8,240MW), PetroVietnam 8 (6,900MW), Vinacomin 4 (2,730MW). There are 13 BOT projects (18,330MW) and 14 IPP (100MW).

Luong Bang