Coal miners extract coal from the ground. (Photo: baochinhphu.vn) The total amount of coaldelivered to the TPPs in Q1/2022 was about 4.49 million tonnes, less than 5.85 milliontonnes as stated in the contracts.
Insufficient coal supply, coupled with low coal in reserve, has forced manyTPPs to operate under capacity or shut down temporarily in late March.
Notably, Nghi Son 1, Vung Ang 1 and Vinh Tan 2 TPPs had to operate at 60 percent capacity. Hai Phong TPP barely had enough coal to run one of its fourgenerators.
The national grid was short of 3 GW of electricity accordingly.
“Coal supply may not improve in the short-term, posing a risk of electricityshortage in April,” said a representative of EVN.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade was concerned that the Vietnam Coal andMineral Industries Group (TKV) and Dong Bac Corp., two coal suppliers, mighthave to compensate TPP investors for the temporary shutdown of their generators.
Accordingly, the ministry issued Document No 1225, urging the twosuppliers to quickly look at ways to deliver coal at the contractual amounts,eliminating the risk of compensation.
“Under no circumstances should there be a coal shortage for electricityproduction,” the ministry said.
TKV attributed the coal shortages to the pandemic, which rendered its coalmines understaffed, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which disrupted coalsupply in the international market.
EVN called for energy-saving actions, including turning off unnecessary lightsand unplugging unused electronics to ease the strain of the electricityshortages.
On April 1, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien held a meeting todiscuss ways to deal with the risk of electricity shortages.
At the meeting, the minister urged TKV, Dong Bac Corp. and Vietnam Oil and GasGroup to increase output and buy more coal and gas from their partners tomeet domestic demand.
He also called on agencies in charge of the national grid and othertransmission systems to stay well-prepared at all times to ensureundisrupted electricity supply.
Regarding fuel and electricity contracts, he requested parties quicklyresolve the problems holding back the contracts.
In the long-term, the groups are urged to cooperate with relevantauthorities on resolving backlog of issues related to contractual pricesand payments.
On the same day, the minister met with Australian Ambassador to VietnamRobyn Mudie, asking her to help connect Australian coal supplierswith the Vietnamese groups to supply around 5 million tonnes of coal each year.
On April 2, he also met the South African Ambassador to Vietnam to discuss coalpurchases./.
VNA
