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