At the seminar held in Hanoi on November 5 (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Norwegian companies have experience in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, and they are ready to share knowledge and technology in this field with Vietnam, Ambassador of Norway Grete Lochen said at a seminar on November 4.
At the event in Hanoi, Le Hai Dang, head of the development strategy division at the Vietnam Electricity group, said according to Vietnam’s electricity development planning, from 2025 to 2030, the country will need to build LNG plants with the total capacity of 15,000 – 19,000 MW to meet its growing power demand.
Meanwhile, the country’s gas supply is forecast to decline after 2020 due to the decrease in natural gas reserves and the slow exploitation of new gas wells. Therefore, it will need to import LNG to provide fuel for power plants in the southern region.
In Vietnam’s gas industry development plan until 2025, the country will have to import 1 – 4 billion cu.m. of LNG annually between 2021 and 2025, and the import volume will increase to 6 – 10 billion cu.m. each year in the following years. About 75 percent of the LNG imports will be used to fuel power plants.
Therefore, the Vietnamese Government is encouraging domestic and foreign businesses in the LNG industry to partner with one another, and this will make the local LNG market become more vibrant than ever, Dang said.
Norway and Vietnam have long coastlines, their areas approximate to each other’s, and both also have oil and gas industry. However, while Norway is an energy exporter, Vietnam now tends to import energy.
According to Norwegian Ambassador Grete Lochen, amid the transition of energy structure in Vietnam and the whole region, LNG is an ideal alternative to coal, especially in terms of air pollution reduction.
She noted Norway is one of the leading countries in hi-tech and smart solutions for the whole LNG supply chain, adding that its companies have knowledge and technologies in this field and ready to share them with Vietnam.
Nguyen Thanh Ha, Director of the Vietbid Technology Investment Consultant Centre, said a number of investors have taken part 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 time ahead./.
VNA
