Pacific, Pertamina to bid for Taiwan's LNG contract

Pacific, Pertamina to bid for Taiwan's LNG contract

TAIPEI (Dow Jones): Taiwan's Pacific Construction Co. plans to bid for the contract to supply natural gas to state-owned Taiwan Power Co.'s Tatan Power Plant, an official at the construction company told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday.

Indonesia's national oil company Pertamina would supply liquefied natural gas to Pacific should Pacific win the contract, which could be worth tens and billions of New Taiwan dollars, according to the Pacific official.

Pacific also plans to build a LNG receiving terminal, the official added.

Pacific has also been discussing with other foreign companies, including BP PLC, for potential cooperation in the construction company's planned natural gas business, the official added.

He declined to disclose details of these talks.

Taiwan Power, or Taipower, has set the deadline for the submission of bids for the contract Aug. 16.

Taipower will buy natural gas from the successful bidder of the tender for its planned 4,000-megawatt power plant in Tatan for 25 years.

The deal, which will break national oil company Chinese Petroleum Corp.'s monopoly in Taiwan's natural gas market, has attracted interest from a number of international energy giants as well as local companies.

Taiwan's Tung Ting Gas Corp. has been planning to compete for the contract and has broken ground for its LNG terminal in northern county of Taoyuan.

Tung Ting's shareholders include China Development Industrial Bank, Uni-President Group, Evergreen Group, the Shinkong Group, as well as Mitsubishi Corp., Itochu Corp., Kansai Electric Power Co. and Osaka Gas Co. of Japan.

In addition, Taiwan's Far Eastern Group has said it plans to cooperate with France's Total Fina Elf S.A. for the contract.

Royal Dutch/Shell Group officials had also said the company was interested.