Laos
plans to start construction this year on the $3.8 billion Thai-financed
Xayaburi hydropower plant on the Mekong River after changing the design to
placate neighboring countries opposed to the project.
Laos completed a review of the dam initiated
in April to ease concerns that it would harm rice production and fish catches
downstream, said Viraphonh Viravong, director-general of the ministry of energy
and mines’ Department of Electricity. Vietnam earlier recommended a 10-year
delay for all hydropower projects on the river, which also runs through
Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia from its source in China’s Tibetan plateau.
“We want to explain, and make the other
countries comfortable,” Viraphonh said in an interview in Hanoi Thursday. “If
they are still very negative about it, of course we will spend some more time
on it.”
The hydropower plant is the first among eight
that Laos plans to build on the Mekong to expand Southeast Asia’s smallest
economy by selling electricity to neighboring countries. The landlocked nation
may have about 38,000 megawatts of installed capacity supply by 2020, about 15
times greater than its domestic needs, according to a presentation by
state-owned Electricite du Laos at a conference in Hanoi yesterday.
Laos presented the project review conducted by
Switzerland-based Poyry Energy AG to Vietnam and plans to meet separately with
Thai and Cambodian officials to discuss recommendations, Viraphonh said. The government
can decide whether to proceed with the project at any point.
Thai buyers
Thailand agreed in December to buy 95 percent
of the electricity from the plant, which will have a capacity of 1,285
megawatts. Ch. Karnchang Pcl, Thailand’s third-biggest construction company by
market value, owns a 57.5 percent stake in Xayaburi.
.
The proposed alterations would slightly
increase the cost of the project, Viraphonh said, without providing figures.
The plant would be able to meet its target completion date if work started
later this year, he said.
Clinton concern
The Mekong and its tributaries provide food,
water and transportation to about 60 million people in the four countries. In a
July meeting with counterparts from Mekong nations in Bali, US Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton called for a pause in construction of dams on the river
“until we are all able to do a better assessment of the likely consequences.”
Vietnam officials in January recommended
delaying the project and moving it to a Mekong tributary because it would
affect “the safety of water sources and food security for Vietnam as well as
for the whole world,” according to notes of the meetings. Thailand and Cambodia
also favored more studies on the dam, the notes show.
A technical review in March by the Mekong
River Commission, an intergovernmental body, found that the dam may lead to the
extinction of species like the Mekong giant catfish and “gaps in knowledge”
mean the full extent of the downstream impact on fisheries is hard to estimate.
The dam “will not materially affect” the quantity and timing of river flows to
Cambodia and Vietnam, it said.
Laos has about six million people and a gross
domestic product of $5.6 billion, according to statistics from the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations. Hydropower and mining projects are set to underpin
GDP growth that may reach 7.7 percent this year, the Asian Development Bank
said in an April 7 report.
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