PV Gas, the gas arm of state-owned PetroVietnam, has received a $280 million loan to fund the first stage of its Nam Con Son 2 gas pipeline project, PV Gas said Wednesday.
The seven-year loan was granted by a consortium of 11 Asian banks headed by Taiwanese Cathay United Bank, the company said in a statement.
In the first stage, PV Gas will invest $400 million to build 151 km of gas pipeline connecting the Thien Ung, Dai Hung fields and others in the Nam Con Son basin to the existing Bach Ho field in the Cuu Long basin.
The project will create infrastructure which is expected to attract more investments in deep-water gas fields in the Nam Con Son basin, PV Gas said. PV Gas has not begun construction at the project yet. The company is in the process of securing capital, a PV Gas spokesperson said Thursday, without providing any time frame for construction.
PV Gas will also invest $125 million in the first stage to upgrade the pipeline system in the Bach Ho field to enable it to receive about 7.5 billion cubic meters/year of natural gas and 300,000 cu m/year of condensate from Thien Ung and Dai Hung, Vietsovpetro, a joint venture between PetroVietnam (51%) and Russia's Zarubezhneft (49%) said in March.
In early May, PV Gas awarded Vietsovpetro contracts to build the 151 km pipeline and upgrade the pipeline system in the Bach Ho field.
All gas from the Bach Ho pipeline system will then be transported via the existing Nam Con Son 1 pipeline to supply customers in Vietnam's south, PV Gas said.
Vietsovpetro made a commercial discovery at the Thien Ung field in block 04-3 in 2009. The field is expected to start production in 2016, Zarubezhneft said in December.
However, PetroVietnam Director General Do Van Hau said in May that PetroVietnam hoped to speed up construction of the pipeline to allow first gas from the Thien Ung field to be pumped in the third quarter of next year.
He asked PV Gas and other relevant parties to strive to finish the pipeline in the first stage as planned, PetroVietnam said in May.
The producing Dai Hung oil and gas field is located in block 05-1A and is equally owned by PetroVietnam and its upstream arm PVEP.
The proposed $1.3 billion Nam Con Son 2 pipeline will be capable of transporting about 7 billion cubic meters/year of natural gas from several gas fields in the Nam Con Son basin. The project will comprise 325 km of pipeline offshore and 30 km on land. It will run parallel to the Nam Con Son-1 pipeline project, which was completed in 2003 and has a capacity of around 19 million cu m/day, according to PetroVietnam.
