Reuters

January 11, 2002

Thailand postpones the signing of an agreement with neighbouring Laos to buy electricity from the Nam Theun 2 dam project in order to further study the contract, a cabinet minister said on Friday.

Chaturon Chaisang, the minister in charge of energy policy, told Reuters the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), had informed him of the deferral of the signing ceremony which was due on January 17. “EGAT has told me that they want to defer the signing because they want to study some details in the contract more carefully before the signing,” Chaturon said. Denying a local media report that the government would scrap the contract, Chaturon said: “The cancellation will not happen. It is just one of several postponements both Thailand and Laos have made in the past, the new signing will take
place soon.” The Bangkok Post reported on Friday the government had postponed “indefinitely” the agreement signing in Vientiane to study the contract and ensure it would not disadvantage the Thai state-run EGAT. Under the current proposed 25-year deal, EGAT would buy $200 million a year of power from the Nam Theun 2 project. Thailand’s
Electricity Generating Plc and Electricite du Laos each hold 25 percent of the project. EFD International, a unit of Electricite de France, holds 35 percent and Thai construction contractor Italian-Thai Development Plc holds 15 percent.