ASEAN ministers vow to speed up ambitious energy grid plans
ASEAN ministers vow to speed up ambitious energy grid plans
HANOI (AFP): Energy ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Monday vowed to speed up ambitious plans for a regional power and gas grid to boost energy security in the face of continued volatility on world oil markets.
Ministers from importing countries expressed a determination to use more natural gas and renewable energy sources as oil prices continued to rise despite last month's move by the OPEC oil cartel to increase production.
"The ministers had the collective view to accelerate the realization and implementation of the ASEAN leaders' vision of an integrated trans-ASEAN energy network consisting of the power grid and trans-ASEAN gas pipeline projects," they said in a final statement issued after their annual meeting.
"Developing master plans for the power grid and gas pipeline projects (and) accelerating international and local finance and capital to bring these energy projects to reality" were vital for the "region's sustainability and security of energy supply," they said.
The ministers hailed progress already made since ASEAN adopted plans for the energy grid last year and welcomed the new cooperation between ASEAN energy officials and Japan launched at a meeting Friday.
National power utilities have set up a joint venture company to provide equity investment for interconnection projects while a masterplan for the regional gas pipeline was expected to be completed by next year.
A working group had been also been set up to address the "viability of electricity interconnection projects, associated commercial and regulatory issues and future energy trading," the statement said.
Robert Teh of the ASEAN secretariat acknowledged the plans still had a long way to go.
"We will develop this in stages. The next stage will be to draw up a master plan including the pipeline," he said.
"There are already existing interconnections between countries. We need to build on these to make sure that the available natural gas can be used by the countries in the region.
"At this time there is not a single cost estimate to calculate the infrastructure costs of this particular undertaking."