After 11 Years, Van Phong 1 Thermal Power Project Was Licensed

Van Phong 1 thermal power project, with investment capital of 2.58 billion USD was officially granted investment certificate, marking another project of Japanese investors invest in Vietnam. This coal-fired thermal power plant has a capacity of 1,320 MW.

Van Phong 1 thermal power project was proposed by the Sumitomo Corporation (Japan) in 2006, with a capacity of 2,640 MW, covering an area of over 350 hectares, divided into two phases. Of which, the first phase has investment capital of over 2 billion USD. In 2009, the project has been approved by the Government to be implemented in the form of BOT.

However, due to many obstacles, including BOT contract negotiations, so far, the project has not yet been implemented or even cannot complete procedures to be issued investment certificate.

The project is expected to be built on an area of over 514.79 hectares, including 178.4 hectares of factory, 68 hectares of fodder land, 3.4 hectares of accommodation for professionals and 265 hectares of water surface area. Since the size of land use is quite large, the ground clearance process faced with a lot of difficulties.

However, the project has now officially been licensed. According to the plan, in early 2018, the project will be started construction.

So, from the beginning of this year, three BOT thermal power projects have been granted investment certificates. The largest is the construction of Nghi Son 2 BOT thermal power plant with a total investment of 2.79 billion USD. The project is also invested by a Japanese investor in Thanh Hoa, aiming to design, construct, operate and transfer a coal-fired power plant with a capacity of 1,200 MW.

The second largest is Van Phong 1 thermal power plant. And third is BOT Nam Dinh 1 thermal power project, with a total investment of 2.07 billion USD.

BOT Nam Dinh 1 is invested by Singapore Investors with the objective of designing, constructing, operating and transferring a coal-fired thermal power plant with the net capacity of 1,109.4 MW.

This is the reason why, in the past 11 months, electricity production and distribution has risen to the second position among the sectors attracting the most investment, after processing industry. Total investment capital into this field is 8.37 billion USD, accounting for 25.3% of the total registered capital.