Thailand asks Malaysia for more time to mull pipeline project

Thailand asks Malaysia for more time to mull pipeline project

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.