Nation: _Business PTT puts off tal

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Subject: Nation: 	Business  PTT puts off talks with Yadana gas developers


Business 
PTT puts off talks with Yadana gas developers
THE Petroleum Authority of Thailand said its negotiations with Total SA and
other Yadana gas developers over its failure to receive gas from the project
will be postponed by another month. 
Earlier, PTT said it expected to conclude the negotiations during its meeting
with the developers in Burma last week. 
According to the 25-year Yadana gas sale contract, starting from mid-1998, PTT
would purchase an average 65 million cubic feet per day of natural gas in the
first month, 100 mmcfd in the second and 195 mmcfd in the third month, but the
authority failed through the delay in the start-up of the Ratchaburi Power
Plant, the sole consumer of the Burmese gas. 
PTT and gas developers had agreed on a formula to settle the gas purchase
delay
since their meeting in Paris on May 11 and 12. Based on the take-or-pay
principle stipulated in the gas contract, PTT must pay $62 million to the
Yadana developers for delivering gas in the period from mid-1998 to the end of
1999. 
A PTT source said yesterday there remained only minor details to be concluded
on gas price reduction and on compensation from developers which deliver a
lower-than-agreed quality of gas. 
''Now there is progress but some details remain to be worked out for both
parties,'' he said. 
According to the source, PTT will compromise on the gas quality issue since
Total promises to solve the problem, considering that production has only
begun
recently. PTT said gas delivered from the Yadana project contains 712 million
British Thermal Units of heating value, against 715 BTU stipulated in the
contract. 
The Yadana gas field, situated in Burma's Gulf of Mataban, has been developed
by a consortium of France-based Total, Unocal Corp of the US, PTT's subsidiary
PTT Exploration and Production, and Burma's national oil firm Myanmar Oil and
Gas Enterprise. 
The Nation