BP's power plant begins operations

BP's power plant begins operations

HANOI: A US$450 million gas-fired power plant in Vietnam built
and owned by British energy giant BP and other foreign investors
has begun commercial operations, the venture's partners said on
Tuesday.

The Phu My 3 power plant, in the southern coastal province of
Ba Ria-Vung Tau, south of Ho Chi Minh City, officially came on
line on Monday after the completion of commissioning and testing.

The plant has a design capacity of 716.8 megawatts and has
added almost 10 percent of Vietnam's power generation capacity to
the national grid, the Phu My 3 BOT Power Co. Ltd. said in a
statement.

The plant, which is able to consume about three million cubic
metres of gas per day at full load, is the first foreign-invested
build-operate-transfer power plant in the communist nation.

It is equally owned by units of BP, Singapore's SembCorp
Industries and the Japanese consortium of Kyushu Electric Power
Co. and Nissho Iwai Corp. --AFP