OneEnergy proposed as sole investor of Vung Ang 2 thermal power plant

The Vung Ang 1 thermal power plant in the central province of Ha Tinh

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has collected opinions from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Justice about the proposal to change the investor of Vung Ang 2 thermal power plant.

After MoIT received feedback from these ministries, it will forward these to the prime minister for consideration.

This comes after the proposal of Vung Ang 2 Thermal Power JSC (VAPCO), a joint venture between local firm Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) and OneEnergy Asia Limited, which is a 50/50 partnership of Hong Kong’s CLP Holdings and Japan’s Mitsubishi Group.

Notably, after REE completed the transfer of its entire holding in VAPCO to OneEnergy, VAPCO applied for authorisation for OneEnergy to become the only investor of the Vung Ang project.

Previously, in March 2009, VAPCO was established as a joint venture of LILAMA Corporation (Lilama, 25 per cent), REE (23 per cent), OneEnergy 30 per cent, and other shareholders.

In September 2011, Lilama transferred its stake in the joint venture to REE.

In August 2012, VAPCO only had two major shareholders left, namely REE (51.55 per cent) and OneEnergy (48.45 per cent). In April, 2018, REE sold its entire holdings in VAPCO to the Hong Kong investor.

The 1,200MW Vung Ang 2 project is part of the Vung Ang thermoelectricity power centre in Ha Tinh province, where PetroVietnam is building the 1,200MW Vung Ang 1 power plant.

The plant's owners expected to begin construction in March 2015 under the BOT format and take the first unit online in 2021 and the second unit in 2022. However, the construction of the project was immobile despite the inking of the BOT project agreement in January 2017 between the General Directorate of Energy (GDE) of MoIT and VAPCO.

In September 2017, the representative of Mitsubishi, an important shareholder of the project (Mitsubishi holds 50 per cent stake in OneEnergy), met with Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung to discuss the project. However, the meeting did not produce any lead on when construction might begin.

According to dantri.com.vn, Duong Tat Thang, Deputy Chairman of the Ha Tinh People’s Committee, stated that if the PM approves VAPCO’s proposal, the BOT contract can be signed between the local authorities and the new investor in the third quarter this year. Besides, the construction may be kicked off in the fourth quarter of this year.