• 
• 

Published on December 13, 2007

Under the deal signed on Monday, GE Energy also supplied a Frame 9E natural-gas turbine for the 160-megawatt combined-cycle power plant in Rayong, which will provide electricity for the national utility and a major steel producer when it enters service in 2010.

Under the operations and maintenance (O&M) contract, GE will operate and maintain the new Sipco plant for 25 years. This is GE's first O&M contract with a small power producer (SPP) in Thailand.

"Our O&M contracts are designed to promote reliable, safe and economic plant operation, providing customers with direct access to GE technical expertise and O&M experience," said Dan Heintzelman, GE Energy's vice president for services. "Currently, our O&M agreements are in place at 64 power plants worldwide."

Kovit Kantapasara, GE Energy's country executive for Thailand, said GE's service agreements were designed to provide a more stable cash flow for plant operations and management while shifting associated risks from the customer to the service provider.

"Customers like Sipco will also benefit from upgrades to the latest technologies supplied by GE," said Kovit.

To execute the O&M services for the Sipco plant, GE expects to employ about 20 technicians from the local community.

Sipco's plant will sell electrical output to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and G Steel, the second-largest steel mill in Thailand, under 25-year power-purchase agreements. The selling price was about 7 US cents (Bt2.25) per kilowatt hour.

Sipco is 70-per-cent owned by Mperial Power, a subsidiary of the Melewar Industrial Group, which is publicly listed in Malaysia. The Star daily of Kuala Lumpur reported Mperial waited two years before kicking off its first power plant in Thailand.

Sipco was appointed as an SPP by the Thai authorities in the mid-1990s to build a 450MW plant. However, the 1997 financial crisis delayed the investment. Mperial bought its stake in Sipco in late 2005.

Melewar CEO and managing director Yaacob Tunku Abdullah told The Star: "It's been a long and stressful two years waiting to see if the project was going to take off."

 The Nation