Oil concession bids cancelled pending change to Petroleum Act

The announcement follows a decision to delay the process to bid for government oil and gas concessions.
Narongchai said once the Act was amended, new invitations for bids would be announced and the application submission period would last 120 days. Narongchai said previously that only one company had submitted a bid.
He said the termination of the invitation might impact on the country’s credibility but the new law needed to be made.
The sooner the new bidding round is held and oil exploration began, the faster the government can map out its energy management plan, he added.
It takes between three to five years to finish the construction of an oil-drill platform.
To deal with the energy demand, Narongchai said PTT had imported liquefied natural gas.
He said the company’s existing gas storage had an annual capacity of 5 million tonnes. It was constructing a second storage tank with the same capacity. The minister said Thailand was prepared to purchase a greater amount of electricity from nearby countries if it could not construct new coal-fired power plants. However, the import of electricity would be capped at 20 per cent of the total energy source.
Meanwhile, a Master Poll revealed that 84 per cent of people agreed with the government’s plan to try to bring together two groups of people who have contrasting views on how to manage the country’s energy resources.
One group supports the concession system while the other prefers the production-sharing contract system.
Another 16 per cent of respondents said they were not sincere in sharing information and the government’s plan was a waste of their time and not necessary.
The survey conducted on 1,200 people aged more than 18 years in Bangkok and its vicinity found that 22 per cent of respondents monitored the media for information about the energy sector every day over a 30-day period.
When asked whether they watched the government’s energy forum last Friday via a live broadcast, about 15 per cent said they monitored all issues while half said they monitored some issues. The remainder said they did not monitor all of it.