Taiwan’s Formosa plugs into huge power plan

July 09, 2012 | 09:51

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The Vietnamese government has agreed to add the 1,500 megawatt thermal power plant invested by Taiwan’s Formosa Plastic Group into the national power development plan until 2020.

This means that the proposed plant in central Ha Tinh province will be connected with the national electricity transmission grid. The Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ha Tinh Provincial People’s Committee will guide the power plant’s preparation and investment activities in accordance with the current regulations, Deputy Minister Hoang Trung Hai said in an announcement released by Government Office last week.

Located in Ha Tinh’s Vung Ang Economic Zone, this independent power plant is part of a mammoth steel manufacturing and seaport complex developed by Formosa Plastic Group. According to the group, the power plant will be mainly responsible for supplying electricity to its steel complex and other industrial charges.

Formosa Plastic Group, in 2008, was licenced to build a 7.5 million tonne steel facility and a deepwater port with total investment capital of $8.9 billion. But the investment capital, at this time, jumped to around $10 billion, said Chu Chun Fan, the group’s representative in Hanoi.

The Taiwanese investor is now constructing the first phase of the 250ha, 14-berth Son Duong port, and apartments for workers, office buildings and a 427-room guest house. It has also completed leveling 961ha of land out of 1.966ha, accounted for 48.9 per cent of the site.

The investor plans to start constructing the steel factory this November and put it into commercial operation at the end of 2015, a year later than the initial schedule due to the delay in its master designing work.