Thailand asks for more time over pipeline plan

Thailand asks for more time over pipeline plan

Agence-France Presse, Bangkok

Thailand has asked Malaysia for more time to consider whether to go ahead with building a controversial cross-border pipeline, Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Monday.

After a meeting with Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar in the southern Thai city of Hat Yai, Surakiart said the government needed to carry out more public hearings and consultations on the project.

"I told him that the government will take time to listen to public opinion," he told reporters after the two-hour talks, according to ministry officials in the Thai capital.

Surakiart added that he did not expect the process would take too long.

The joint natural gas pipeline is due to go into operation next year. Thailand and Malaysia are expected to start pumping gas from a seabed site along their border in the Gulf of Thailand in mid-2002.

The gas will come ashore at Songkhla, Thailand and then be sent by pipeline to both countries. The first stage of the project is expected to cost one billion US dollars.

Officials from a joint development organization for the project say there could be 25 years of gas in the reserve.

But the plan has been stalled by strong opposition from Thai environmental groups who say the pipeline will destroy fishing grounds and cause other ecological damage.

A Thai government spokesman said earlier this month that the authorities would take another three months to decide whether to construct the pipeline.

The delay was announced after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra went to the region to listen to 3,000 angry opponents of the pipeline and later met 100 leading supporters of the project.

During Monday's one-day meeting, which focused on economic affairs, the two foreign ministers also agreed to extended the opening hours of the Hat Yai border checkpoint due to a sharp increase in tourist traffic over the last month.

The two sides also agreed to consider adjusting the operating hours of other crossings including Sungai-Kolok and Padang Besar. They resolved as well to cooperate more closely on HIV-AIDS treatment and to discuss better transport links to facilitate Malaysian trade to Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.