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."