At the seminar held in Hanoi on November 5 (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Norwegian companieshave experience in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, and they are readyto share knowledge and technology in this field with Vietnam, Ambassador ofNorway Grete Lochen said at a seminar on November 4.
At the event in Hanoi, Le Hai Dang, head of thedevelopment strategy division at the Vietnam Electricity group, said accordingto Vietnam’s electricity development planning, from 2025 to 2030, the countrywill need to build LNG plants with the total capacity of 15,000 – 19,000 MW tomeet its growing power demand.
Meanwhile, the country’s gas supply is forecastto decline after 2020 due to the decrease in natural gas reserves and the slowexploitation of new gas wells. Therefore, it will need to import LNG to providefuel for power plants in the southern region.
In Vietnam’s gas industry development plan until2025, the country will have to import 1 – 4 billion cu.m. of LNG annuallybetween 2021 and 2025, and the import volume will increase to 6 – 10 billioncu.m. each year in the following years. About 75 percent of the LNG importswill be used to fuel power plants.
Therefore, the Vietnamese Government isencouraging domestic and foreign businesses in the LNG industry to partner withone another, and this will make the local LNG market become more vibrant thanever, Dang said.
Norway and Vietnam have long coastlines, theirareas approximate to each other’s, and both also have oil and gas industry.However, while Norway is an energy exporter, Vietnam now tends to importenergy.
According to Norwegian Ambassador Grete Lochen,amid the transition of energy structure in Vietnam and the whole region, LNG isan ideal alternative to coal, especially in terms of air pollution reduction.
She noted Norway is one of the leading countriesin hi-tech and smart solutions for the whole LNG supply chain, adding that itscompanies have knowledge and technologies in this field and ready to share themwith Vietnam.
Nguyen Thanh Ha, Director of the VietbidTechnology Investment Consultant Centre, said a number of investors have takenpart in this field in Vietnam, but there haven’t been any Norwegian companies.He hoped that the country will cooperate with Norwegian firms in the timeahead./.
VNA
