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ASEAN To Set Up Regional Energy Cen



Subject: ASEAN To Set Up Regional Energy Centre

Business Time
? MANILA



Asean to set up regional energy centre

It will coordinate projects including planned US$11b natural gas 
pipeline 

S
OUTH-east Asian nations are to set up a centre to coordinate regional 
energy projects including a planned US$11 billion (S$15.7 billion) 
natural gas pipeline, an official said yesterday. 

The plans for the gas pipeline will be coordinated by an Asean Energy 
Centre due to be created in a year while the grid interconnection will 
be taken up by the heads of each country's power utilities firm. 

The plans were discussed at a conference of energy ministers of the 
Association of South-east Asian Nations that was held here this week, 
Philippine Energy Secretary Francisco Viray said in a news conference. 

Mr Viray said the Asean grid interconnection project would involve 
integrating several sub-regional interconnection projects that are 
already being implemented. 

This includes an interconnection project covering Thailand, Vietnam, 
Laos and Cambodia, another project involving Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia 
and the southern Philippines and two others linking Indonesia and 
Malaysia to Thailand and Singapore. 

Mr Viray said that Australia was providing aid for a feasibility study 
on the grid interconnection to be carried out this year. 

The US$11 billion natural gas pipeline in turn is envisioned as linking 
the gas fields in Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines to 
provide natural gas to these countries as well as Singapore. 

Philippine Assistant Energy Secretary Guillermo Balce said the Asean 
Energy Centre would be created from an existing Asean-European Union 
(EU) energy research centre in Jakarta, to coordinate the gas pipeline 
project. 

Philippine President Fidel Ramos earlier said the pipeline would be 
8,000 km long. Construction of the project, first proposed in 1995, is 
expected to last beyond 2020. 

But Mr Viray said the implementation of the projects would be "dictated 
by market forces". He said there was still no consensus on how involved 
the Asean governments would be in the planning of the projects but 
admitted they would have to attract private investment to carry them 
out. 

He said the two proposed projects were presented to the private sector 
for possible investment during an Asean forum in Kuala Lumpur last 
month. 

At the conference, Mr Ramos urged Asean countries to mobilise private 
sector funding for energy projects. 

He noted the Philippines managed to end a serious power shortage from 
1992 to 1993 by tapping private firms to set up power plants. -- AFP 


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