Liquefied natural gas forms a key part of Thailand’s gas future, with the kingdom planning to develop new receiving and regasification plants and expand its existing import facilities, writes Amanda Battersby.

The Ministry of Energy estimates Thailand’s LNG demand will reach 35 million tonnes per annum by 2036, while import capacity could be almost 40 million tpa by then.

The ministry’s long-term forecast envisages a third and fourth onshore receiving terminal, each with initial 5 million tpa nameplate capacity, and a 2 million tpa floating storage and regasification unit to be deployed at Chana in Songkhla province.

In the shorter term, Thailand’s PTT LNG is forging ahead with plans for its second import terminal on the country’s eastern seaboard.

PTT just days ago awarded an approximately $925 million contract to construct the Nong Fab receiving and regas facility in Mueang Rayong district to a joint venture of Italy’s Saipem and co-venturer Taiwan-based CTCI Corporation.

The duo will carry out the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the Nong Fab import terminal that will have a maximum capacity of 9 million tpa.

The facility is expected to come into operation by 2022, some three years after the next expansion at PTT’s nearby Map Ta Phut terminal is completed.

Map Ta Phut received its first LNG import in 2011 and is already being expanded from its initial 5 million tpa to 10 million tpa and then further to 11.5 million tpa in 2019. PTT chief executive Tevin Vongvanich late last month said the company has plans to trade LNG to nations including China where demand is increasing.

“We will use our Map Ta Phut and Nong Fab receiving terminals as the base for our LNG trading business as we will still have capacity left,” Tevin told the Bangkok Post.

State-owned PTT is also considering a third onshore LNG import terminal in Thailand and a floating storage and regasification unit in neighbouring Myanmar.

The touted FSRU, with an expected initial capacity of 3 million tpa, would likely be deployed off Kanbauk, Myanmar, according to an official at Thailand’s Ministry of Energy.

Meanwhile, a 50:50 joint venture of PTT and its upstream subsidiary PTTEP has secured a 10% stake in Petronas’ producing Train 9 LNG project in Malaysia.

“[This joint venture] is a way for PTTEP to capture the downstream as well, while PTT would like to try to capture part of the upstream,” PTTEP president Phongsthorn Thavisin says. “This [JV] company will not concentrate only on LNG, hopefully we would like to capture the whole gas chain.”

PTTEP also has 8.5% equity in the touted Area 1 grassroots LNG project in Mozambique, for which the company is hopeful of a 2023 start-up.

“We are positioning our company as a gas company because the gas [market] does not fluctuate as much as oil,” adds Phongsthorn.

Gas today accounts for some 70% of PTTEP’s portfolio.

The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) has taken advantage of the government’s move to liberalise the sector to embark on its own LNG FSRU project.

Fluor of the US is carrying out front-end engineering and design work for Egat’s proposed 5 million tpa FSRU that will be deployed in the upper Gulf of Thailand.

Egat intends to approach the market for the FSRU after it receives environmental impact assessment and government approval, which is expected later this year.

The FSRU is intended to be stationed near existing pipeline infrastructure that supplies feedstock from the soon to be depleting fields in the Malaysia-Thailand Joint Development Area to Egat’s South Bangkok and North Bangkok power plants.

The FSRU is planned to enter operations by 2024.

PTT, the former Petroleum Authority of Thailand, is teaming up with Egat for what is expected to be the country’s first FSRU.

Egat has already secured PTT approval to import 1.5 million tpa of LNG into PTT’s Map Ta Phut receiving and regas terminal in Rayong province.

Egat earlier this year started working with a consultant to procure LNG for this third party access deal with PTT that is due to start next January.

The Thai outfit subsequently signed a memorandum of understanding with Qatargas that could see it importing LNG from the Middle East nation. Thailand has already signed long-term purchase agreements with Qatar, Shell, BP and Petronas for a combined 5.2 million tpa, according to the Department of Mineral Fuels.

Thailand last year imported 3.9 million tonnes of LNG, up from 2.9 million in 2016.

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LNG in the ascendant with new terminals and facilities planned