Thailand has narrowed down its choices of potential liquefied natural gas suppliers to eight projects.
They are Qatar's North field, Oman's Central field, Australia's Northwest Shelf and Gordon/Tryal Rocks projects, Indonesia's Natuna Island, Indonesia's Badak H train, and Malaysia's MLNG III train.
Thailand recently emerged as a prospective importer of LNG when forecasts showed domestic supply falling short of gas demand by about 2001. The government told state owned Petroleum Authority of Thailand to form a joint venture to handle LNG imports and construct an LNG receiving terminal and related facilities to go on stream by 2001.
With energy demand soaring at a rate of 10%/year, Thailand expects to import 2.5-10 million metric tons/year of LNG, mainly to fuel power plants.
Qatar emerged as a candidate for LNG imports by Thailand during a recent visit to Bangkok by Qatari Minister of Energy and Industry Abdulla Ahmed al-Attiyah. Abdulla noted Qatar has potential gas reserves totaling 300 tcf and is committed to deliver only 6 million tons/year of LNG to Japan, leaving a substantial volume available for delivery to Thailand. Qatar could provide Thailand as much as 6 million tons/year of LNG by 2000 via planned expansion of its Qatargas project or 5 million tons/year via doubling capacity of its Ras Laffan LNG export project after 2001. Abdulla also proposed Thailand take a 30% stake in Qatar's 1 million ton/year urea project rather than importing gas to feed a proposed Thai urea project.
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