Steering Committee urges land handover for Van Phong 1 BOT Power Plant's sub-component projects

The National Steering Committee for Power Development urges to handover ground for Van Phong 1 BOT Power Plant

The deadline to hand over land in December for the Van Phong 1 project's sub-components was set by Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh, head of the National Steering Committee on Power Development in a document sent to Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan provinces on November 9.

In order to reach this deadline, the deputy prime minister asked the two provinces to complete procedures for forest use conversion within November and coordinate with the Electricity of Vietnam to compensate and resettle for households in the project area.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is assigned to complete the appraisal report on the policy of changing forest use purposes related to projects to connect the plant to the grid to report to the prime minister for approval before November 15.

Thecluster of works to connect the plant to the grid includes the 500 kV Van Phong-Vinh Tan transmission line as well as the transmission line connecting Thuan Nam station to Van Phong-Vinh Tan line, and the 500 kV Van Phong substation.

These projects have to be completed in December. Vietnam will have to compensate the plant's investor (Van Phong Power Co., Ltd., a Vietnamese company invested by Sumitomo Corporation) $1 million per day if the construction is behind the deadline. After six months, the amount to be compensated is about VND5 trillion ($217.4 million). And after six months, the BOT contract of Van Phong 1 Thermal Power Plant will be terminated and the government will have to buy back the plant.

The delay in handing over the ground for the project to connect the plant to the grid has affected the construction progress, the risk of delay is great.

Meanwhile, according to the commitment, the projects to connect this BOT power plant must be completed in December 2022. According to a representative of the Central Power Project Management Board (National Power Transmission Corporation), the project operator, the biggest risk to the progress of the project cluster is the 500kV Van Phong-Vinh Tan transmission line project, which is facing a lot of difficulties in land clearance.

By early November, there were 133 positions of column foundation that had not been handed over by the locality to the project management board. 30 per cent (52 out of 172 positions) of the positions in Khanh Hoa and 60 per cent in Ninh Thuan (81 of 131) have yet to be handed over.