Thailand wants to become oil trading and biofuel hub in Southeast Asia

Thailand’s Energy Minister Pichai Naripthaphan said that the Thai government wants to revive shelved plans to make the country an oil trading and biofuel hub in Southeast Asia. Thailand, a net oil importer, also wants to boost its crude reserves from 18 days to 29 days as a means to improve the country’s energy security. “If we have the land bridge, Thailand has the potential to become a centre for oil trading and a leader in biofuel in the region,” the energy minister said. The land bridge – is a plan that was hatched 20 years ago which called for the construction of a 180 km trans-peninsula rail, road and pipeline link that will run between the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea. It was designed to speed up the transport of crude oil from the Middle East. The US$700 million project was shelved after the 2004 Indian tsunami. Former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, brother of Thailand’s newly elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, reviewed the plan before finally scrapping the project in 2005. The government is encouraging state-controlled PTT Pcl and its group to invest in neighboring countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries to boost Thailand’s oil reserves. Thailand is currently negotiating on concessions for four to five offshore and onshore new petroleum fields in Myanmar and is working on resolving a territory dispute with Cambodia. It also recently announced that it plans to restructure retail prices through the imposition of a levy on some gasoline and diesel fuel from mid-January next year, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s oil fund. (October 7, 2011)