MEKONG POWER (MYANMAR)

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Power Economics 
December 31, 1998 

MEKONG POWER; SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES PLAN FOR POWER EXPANSION (extract). 

Richard Mogg. 

In the second part of his report on the electricity industry around the
Mekong delta, Richard Mogg focuses on Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. 

 ..........

MYANMAR 

Myanmar has a total installed generating capacity of about 1035 MW, but
much of this is isolated from the small grid focused on Yangon (Rangoon),
the capital city. By the year 2000, it is forecast, peak demand could
balloon to around 1500 MW.

Investment of US$15-20 billion is needed during the next two decades to
cope with forecast demand growth. The Myanmar Electric Power Enterprise
(MEPE), under the direction of the Ministry of Energy, supervises the
country's power industry. The ministry's Power Planning Department (PPD)
coordinates development. 

Thailand's GMS Power (MDX Power), already successful in Laos, has a
government licence to explore the Salween river basin in terms of its
hydropower potential. On a government-to-government basis, Thailand has
agreed to purchase up to 1500 MW of hydropower from Myanmar by 2006. MEPE
recently contracted a private company to distribute electricity in the
Yangon area. 

Myanmar's military-dominated de facto government has announced that it is
seeking foreign joint venture partners to operate existing power stations,
as well as to build new ones on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis.  

MEPE has raised some electricity tariffs to try and make power and other
infrastructure projects more attractive to foreign investors. But a wide
international embargo on transactions with the generals confounds even
preliminary negotiations by all but a few project-hungry entrepreneurs. 
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