Thailand’s State-owned firms in rush to boost investment spending to help restore the domestic economy
State-owned and mostly state-owned energy firms are rushing their 2021-22 capital expenditure in a bid to help restore the domestic economy, which has been ravaged by three Covid-19 outbreaks.
The spending will not only secure energy supply in Thailand but also help the country generate jobs through the state’s energy infrastructure development projects.
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) and mostly state-owned PTT Group have been told to speed up their multi-billion-baht investment projects, said Kulit Sombatsiri, permanent secretary of the Energy Ministry.
The investments go together with the ministry’s power bill discount scheme for businesses and households.
Mr Kulit said the ministry will also allocate a 6.5-billion-baht budget from the Energy Conservation Fund to support projects aimed to increase the efficiency of energy management.
PTT, together with its six-core subsidiaries, announced they will spend a total of 851 billion baht on upstream and downstream businesses as well as new businesses between 2021 and 2025.
Auttapol Rerkpioon, PTT president and chief executive, said the largest portion of the funds will go toward the development of oil, gas and petrochemical infrastructure.
In terms of the gas business, PTT plans to spend 103.26 billion baht in investment projects, including the development of its second liquefied natural gas receiving terminal at Ban Nong Fab in Rayong’s Map Ta Phut sub-district, the fifth-phase development of a gas pipeline network and construction of a seventh gas separation plant.
PTT Exploration and Production Plc are spending US$23.63 billion (737.6 billion baht) on gas projects in the Gulf of Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar.
Thai Oil Plc, the oil refinery arm of PTT, is spending $5 billion on its Clean Fuel Project, scheduled to be completed in 2023.
PTT Global Chemical Plc, a petrochemical arm of PTT, is spending $642 million to improve the efficiency of its plastic recycling plant and a second olefin cracker unit in Rayong.
IRPC Plc, another petrochemical arm of PTT, is going ahead with 36.25-billion-baht of projects, including Ultra Clean Fuel which aims to upgrade refined oil to meet the Euro 5 emission standard.
Global Power Synergy Plc, PTT’s power generation arm, is spending almost 60 billion baht to increase power generation capacity to 8 gigawatts by 2025, up from 5GW at present.
PTT Oil and Retail Business Plc (OR) is spending its 74-billion-baht budget to develop new oil trading infrastructure and non-oil businesses domestically and overseas.
Egat is spending 56 billion baht expanding its power generation capacity as well as improving the transmission line and power control systems.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2114803/state-owned-firms-rush-to-boost-investment-spending
