Jaks Resources Berhad wants to delay its $2 billion coal-fired power
plant in Hai Duong province.
Pham Manh Thang, director of the
General Department of Energy under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)
said the Malaysian investor needed a one-year delay to arrange funds due to
global economic turmoil knocking it off its stride.
“We have passed the investor’s
proposal to the government for consideration,” said Thang.
Jaks, through its subsidiary Jaks
Hai Duong Power in Vietnam, obtained an investment certificate for building the
project last August under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract with the
MoIT, with 75 per cent of the total cost to be financed by loans.
Site preparation work was
initially scheduled to begin in 2012’s second quarter and the first 600MW
turbine was planned to start operation in 2016’s fourth quarter. The second
600MW turbine would come on stream in the second quarter of 2017.
In January this year,
AmInvestment Bank, a Jaks adviser, sent a document to Malaysia Stock Exchange
announcing Jaks Resources was going to sell half of its stake in the power
plant to raise funds.
Jaks Resources then announced
that it reached agreements with China’s Meiya Power and Malaysia’s Island
Circle Investment Holding, which would respectively pay $198.24 million and
$49.56 million to buy 40 and 10 per cent stakes at Hai Duong thermopower plant
to establish a joint venture.
The establishment of the joint
venture must be approved by Jaks’ shareholders, which was expected to be done
in the middle of this year, before the deal could become effective. However,
Jaks last week announced the parties “have not closed the agreements” to
establish the joint venture.
Thang said the MoIT had not
received any Jaks proposal for transferring stakes to Chinese and Malaysian
investors.
The coal-fired power plant is the
fourth BOT power project invested by foreign investors in Vietnam. It was also
the second one licenced over the past decade with the other being Mong Duong 2
plant invested by the US’ AES Corporation, Korea’s Posco Power and China
Investment Corporation in Quang Ninh province. Some 40 per cent of construction
works for Mong Duong 2 plant have been done and its first turbine was installed
two months ago.
Ngoc Linh | vir.com.vn
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. Since we are currently changing the platform of www.yourvietnamexpert.com, you may contact us at: sbc.pte@gmail.com, provisionally. Many thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment