Ranhill to export power to southern Thailand from Kedah
21 February 2019
Ranhill Holdings Bhd (Ranhill) and Thailand-based Treasure Specialty Company Ltd (TS Co) will jointly develop a 1,150 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine power plant in Kedah for power export to Southern Thailand.
Upon completion, the power plant is expected to dispatch 100 per cent of its generation capacity through a dedicated transmission line to a substation in southern Thailand, said Ranhill which signed the collaboration agreement with TS Co here today.
“We certainly expect the proposed power plant project to boost the group’s earnings in the long term, in addition to diversifying our energy portfolio regionally, while our investment will contribute towards job creation and economic growth of Northern Kedah,” said Ranhill Group’s president and chief executive Tan Sri Hamdan Mohamad.
Furthermore, the supply of supplementary power to Songkhla, Satun, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat would certainly act as a catalyst for further development of these provinces in southern Thailand, he pointed out.
Hamdan said providing cost-effective, environmentally clean power to help address power shortage in some parts of southern Thailand would be a game-changing opportunity for the group.
“It will not only enable us to expand our domestic power generation business but it will also take us beyond our existing water, wastewater and water reclamation activities in the country,” he added.
Ranhill said the project planned to utilise the existing infrastructure gas Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plant that would involve purchasing LNG from Petronas, before converting it to natural gas at the Melaka regasification plant.
It will then be transported through the Peninsular Gas Utilisation (PGU) network to the power plant before electricity is supplied to Thailand.
Evaluation and discussion concerning the project is ongoing, as it is still subject to approval from relevant authorities in both Malaysia and Thailand, said the group.
Meanwhile, TS Co, the advisor for the group’s Thai water projects, is a specialist in project development, fundraising and financial restructuring.
“Given there are strong prospects to be leveraged in the power sector, it made sound business sense for our two entities to jointly develop and invest in the power plant,” it added.
This is also very much in line with Ranhill’s aspirations to grow its footprint in Thailand and China, where the group has been operating since 2005. — Bernama
Source: http://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/ranhill-export-power-southern-thailand-kedah
