A joint venture between GS Energy of South Korea and Vietnamese asset manager VinaCapital is to build a $3bn power station in Long An province, to the east of Ho Chi Minh City. GS will operate the plant for 25 years after its completion in December 2025.

Long An I and II will have two 1.5GW gas turbines running on LNG. The plants had been planned as coal-burners, but this was dropped after the government of Vietnam decided to favour lower carbon energy. Vietnam still has plans for a number of large coal plants, but these have attracted intense international criticism in recent months.

An investment certificate was handed over to VinaCapital and GS Energy by Long An officials in a ceremony held on 21 March.

The plants will occupy a 90ha site on the Long An Southeast Asia Industrial Park. Long An 1 will go on stream in 2025, and Long An 2 a year later.

The location is close to the Long An International Port complex, where three new wharves are due to be completed this year, more than doubling its docking capacity.

The VN Express website notes that Long An is the latest in a series of LNG plants being planned in the country. It cited Singaporean company Delta Offshore Energy’s plan to build a plant in the Mekong delta province of Bac Lieu in 2024 and Exxon Mobil’s plan to build a $5bn plant in the northern port city of Haiphong.

The LNG plants are being complemented by a $6bn programme of works to build LNG import terminals around the country.

In 2019, PetroVietnam, the state-owned energy company, announced plans to begin work on the first of six such terminals.

GS Group, formerly a subsidiary of Lucky Goldstar, is presently the eighth largest of South Korea’s “chaebol” conglomerates.