Thailand’s Gulf Energy Development has started talks with the provincial government of the Ninh Thuan province of Vietnam about plans to build four gas-fired power plants with a total capacity of 6,000 MW and their associated LNG import installations (Ca Na LNG project). This project would make Vietnam a significant LNG importer and gas could replace some of the country's existing coal-fired power generation assets.
Coal is expected to dominate Vietnam’s power sector over the next decade but gas is expected to slowly take over and many gas-fired plants have been unveiled recently. In January 2019, US-based oil and gas company ExxonMobil and the state-run hydrocarbon producer Petrovietnam announced the front-end engineering and design (FEED) for a 3,000 MW integrated gas-to-power project in central Vietnam. The final investment decision (FID) is targeted for 2020 based on executed gas sales agreements, regulatory approvals, governmental guarantees and economic competitiveness.