Govt Should Reduce Coal Exports to Serve Domestic Demand

The state-owned Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) has recently proposed the government to reduce coal exports to ensure sufficient supply for domestic coal-fired power projects.

PetroVietnam said the country is exporting almost all high-quality coal and using low-quality coal to feed power plants; however, lower coal quality is resulting in higher operational costs for the plants.

Coal-fired power plants including Vung Ang 1 and Thai Binh 2 have recently complained that they are using low quality coal, including dust coal coded 5 and coded 6b which have calories between 20% and 40% lower than the world standard.

Vietnam is still trying to increase coal exports while it is forecast to have to import coal to feed local power plants from 2012 and could hardly import coal from 2015 due to capital shortage and fierce competition to win import orders in the world.

The state-owned Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin) cannot meet the national rising coal demand for power generation that is forecast to reach 11.4 million in 2010, 63.2 million in 2015 and 196 million tons by 2020. Last year, Vietnam produced 40 million tons of coal while its coal consumption reached 43 million.

Vinacomin is forecast to fall short of 8.2 million tons of coal to feed its power plants by 2012 and 12.8 million tons in 2015.

The country is projected to have to import 28 million tons of coal to feed power plants in the southern region in 2015 and 66 million tons in 2020.

Tags: Vietnam Coal Exports