V. Case Studies (Recent and pending World Bank fossil fuel loans)

a. China Coal-Fired Power

b. India Solar Thermal Power Power Plant

c. Nigeria to Ghana Gas Pipeline

d. Thailand Power Plants

Case Study A: China Coal-Fired Power

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(for more project details, see the Inventory section, of this report)

In Context

China needs to add 15 gigawatts of power plant capacity each year -- enough to power two cities the size of Los Angeles -- for the next two decades to sustain targeted 8% annual economic growth rates.
--World Bank

The bulk of the Bank's recently-approved new greenhouse gas emissions emanate from China. From June 1997 to June 1998, the Bank approved over $1.3 billion in loans to four massive coal-fired power projects in China, a country that already burns more coal than any other country.

The four newly-funded projects -- Hunan, Tuoketuo, Waigaoqao, and Yancheng -- will have a combined capacity of 9,000 megawatts, almost triple the combined power of all power plants financed by the Bank in the previous five years. These plants, we estimate, will emit 1.4 billion tons of CO2 in their first 20 years of operation.

Since the Earth Summit in 1992, the World Bank has approved over $2.57 billion in financing toward coal and diesel-fired power plants with a capacity of over 13,390 megawatts in China. Combined, these approved projects will release an estimated 2.1 billion tons of CO2 in their initial 20 years of operation.

Why Coal?

Coal is China's most abundant fossil fuel, and China is rapidly industrializing. According to the World Bank, China needs to add 15 gigawatts of power plant capacity each year -- enough to power two cities the size of Los Angeles -- for the next two decades to sustain targeted 8% annual economic growth rates. The Bank's message to China: grow, grow, even if it means pouring unprecedented amounts of coal into the economy's engines.

While the explosive growth of coal-fired power in China has clear climate change implications, it also will exact on-the-ground consequences. As the country's own Xinhua News Agency reported in March 1998, "China is the biggest coal consumer in the world, using more than 1 billion tons [per] year. Estimates are that it produces over 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide each year, and 30 percent of the country's land has suffered from acid rain."

Several Chinese cities are among the most polluted in the world, with coal-fired power emissions the prime culprit. The Inter Press Service writes in a recent article:

"Bank staffers themselves have complained that the agency overstates the benefits of fossil fuel projects by turning a blind eye to the environmental and social damage involved. Specifically, the Bank's estimates of project costs do not factor in the costs of environmental clean-ups and treatment for the respiratory infections and other ailments that increase where fossil fuels are burned, papers circulated among staff reveal."

However, Robert Watson, the new head of the Bank's environment department [and the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], argues that the Bank is a relatively small player in the power sector and is helping to promote advances that result in greater energy efficiency. "Should the Bank be involved in this sector? Absolutely, so long as it can demonstrate that it is improving (the sector's) performance," he says.
(Inter Press Service, Nov. 4, 1997)

TNCs and the Power Plants

The Bank's four coal-fired power plant loans are hardly "relatively small," as Dr. Watson has contended. Tuoketuo, approved last May, likely will be Asia's largest coal-fired power complex when it operates at its ultimate 3,600 megawatts of capacity. Tuoketuo will then likely be surpassed in capacity by Waigaoqao, another Bank-aided project, which has an ultimate planned capacity of 5,200 megawatts of coal-fired power.

These projects are large enough to attract the keen interest of foreign corporations, and the Bank is smoothing their paths to own or equip the mega-power plants:

* The Tuoketuo mine-mouth power plant in Inner Mongolia will start supplying Beijing with electricity in 2001. No transnational corporations are yet involved, but China is accepting international bids for power plant and related transmission equipment. In addition, the regional government of Inner Mongolia has announced that it is seeking foreign owners for the plant.

* In July 1997, the Chinese government agreed to purchase boilers and turbines from transnationals Foster & Wheeler (U.S.) and Siemens (Germany). The $700 million deal was the country's biggest-ever power plant equipment purchase from foreign corporations. The two companies will supply equipment for the 2,100 megawatt (6x350MW) Yancheng coal-fired power plant in Shanxi Province. AES Corp. of the U.S. is a 25% investor in the power project. In March 1998, the Bank backed these deals to the tune of $250 million toward the development of a transmission system between the mine-mouth power plant and the power-hungry province of Jiangsu.

* National Power of the UK has been selected to build the 700 megawatt Changsha power plant, one of two Hunan Province plants to which the World Bank's board loaned $300 million at its June 1998 meeting. This loan targets transmission lines from the Changsha and the Leiyang power plants. It includes funding for two new 300 megawatt generators at Leiyang, and the privatization of the Changsha plant. Changsha will be the second power plant ever built and operated by a foreign corporation in China.

* Transnational corporate involvement in the other major project, Waigaoqaio, is still being negotiated. The Chinese government has opened international bidding for turbine generators and boilers. Discussions between China and prospective foreign owners reportedly fell apart last November. Construction was scheduled to start in May 1998.

The Bank's China energy agenda is as much about giving TNCs access to the lifeblood of a booming country as it is about simply helping that country grow. These four projects are at the vanguard of a power privatization wave that the Bank is trying to generate in China. They do not always succeed, as in the case of Waigaoqao. "The Waigaoqao deal fell through despite being backed, to the tune of US$400 million, by the World Bank," reported EIU ViewWire in March 1998. But the Bank remains undaunted by the Chinese bureaucracy that stymied the Waigaoqiao deal, as evidenced by June loan toward private power plant developments in Hunan province.

Sources: The Xinhua News Agency, March 27, 1998; The Atlanta Journal, February 25, 1997; UPI, August 20, 1996; Asia Pulse, April 29, May 2 and May 12, 1997; World Bank PID, Project ID CNPA3650, November 1996; China Business Information Network, June 13, 1997, July 4, 1997; EIU Viewswire, March 4, 1998; World Bank MOS, February 4, 1998; The Atlanta Journal, February 25, 1997, The Xinhua News Agency, March 27, 1998; China Daily, March 30, 1998; British Broadcasting Corporation, December 31, 1997; Washington Times, June 19, 1997; Beijing Review, Nov. 3, 1997.

Case Study B: India Solar Thermal Power Power Plant

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The World Bank's prototype renewable energy project, the proposed Solar Thermal Power Plant in Rajasthan, India, would be its most expensive solar energy project to date (see Inventory section for further details). But this plant, owned by fossil fuel giants Amoco and Enron, would be primarily a fossil fuel burner, with 100 to 105 megawatts of capacity for oil, coal, or gas-fired power, compared to just 35 to 40 megawatts of capacity for solar-generated energy.

The Bank argues that the venture -- owned by Amoco and Enron -- would not be economic without the fossil fuel component. The Bank sees this project as "the first step of a long term program for promoting solar thermal power in India and around the world that would lead to a phased deployment of similar systems in the country and in other developing nations." It will "help expand the use of solar-thermal technology worldwide over the long-term."

The Bank's use of the term "solar thermal" is rather deceptive. This type of project is really a fossil fuel power plant shaded by a green veneer of solar energy, but media reports to date have been blinded by the sun, and environmentalists have generally embraced the plan.

The type of fossil fuel to be burned in the Bank's prototypical alternative energy plant remains to be determined by Amoco and Enron. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar is one possibility. Enron plans to ship 5 million tons of LNG per year from the Middle East, with pipelines running to Gujarat, Delhi, Punjab, and Rajasthan. Oil is another possible fuel. Shell is currently drilling for oil in western Rajasthan, and Enron is a partner in a separate oil exploration venture in the state. And coal, so abundant in India, can not be ruled out.

Rajasthan's Solar Revolution

The Rajasthan state government has declared 35,000 square kilometers (roughly the size of South Carolina) as a "solar energy enterprise zone." This area of the Thar desert receives as much solar radiation as any place on earth, and the government is opening it up to investors, tax-free.

Rajasthan is now on the verge of a solar energy boom. Sun Source Ltd. is planning to build a 50 megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant. Energen is committed to building a 200 megawatt solar chimney by the year 2000. This technology uses the sun to drive wind turbines.

But while the solar revolution nears, its economic viability is threatened by fossil fuel exploration already underway in Rajasthan. Recent surveys by Shell and other companies have found "the substantial presence of hydrocarbons in the region," reported The Hindu in December 1997. As so, even in the world's most sun-drenched desert, a push toward clean energy could be forestalled by the discovery of black gold, and the World Bank's backing of a power plant mostly driven by fossil fuels.

The World Bank view

Instead of the solar-only projects in Rajasthan, the Bank is planning to finance the smaller-scale fossil fuel/solar hybrid plant. Its reasoning: Amoco/Enron's "solar parabolic trough" technology "lends itself to hybridization with conventional fossil-based technologies."

Incredibly, the Bank claims that its chosen project in the Thar desert represents a net decline in carbon emissions. "The Project is expected to result in avoided emissions of 3.1 million tonnes of carbon over the operating life of the solar thermal plant relative to generation from a similar-sized coal-fired power station," states the Bank in its PID, which does not calculate the emissions that would be released from the burning of fossil fuels in the power station.

This type of double-speak only stretches the Bank's credibility and obfuscates its role in promoting "greenwash" by companies like Amoco and Enron. These companies have gained control over most of the world's most promising solar technology but continue to pour more than 99% of their investments into fossil fuel-oriented projects.

Sources: The Guardian (London), November 27, 1997; World Bank MOS, February 4, 1998; Greenwire, September 15, 1997; Presswire, April 3, 1998; The Economist, September 6, 1997; GEF PID INGE43021; World Bank Press Release, April 2, 1998; Middle East Digest, January 16, 1998; The Hindu, March 30, 1997, Dec. 2, 1997; Global Private Power, Nov. 1, 1997

Case Study C: Nigeria to Ghana Gas Pipeline

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The Supplier

Several years ago, the World Bank conducted a feasibility study for a gas pipeline from Nigeria to Ghana. In 1996, the Bank declared that "the project was later taken up by the private sector without World Bank involvement." But the Nigeria to Ghana gas pipeline project was back on the Bank's books, as of February 1998, with a potential $260 million financing scheme in the works.

Planners hope to run a natural gas pipeline between the Chevron-run Escravos field in Nigeria and the World Bank-financed, CMS Energy-run power plant in Takarodi, Ghana. Shell, which also holds considerable gas reserves in Nigeria, and nearby Cote d'Ivoire, are battling Chevron for control over the pipeline. Some of the gas may also be used by Benin and Togo, countries through which the pipeline will transit.

The Bank's presence in Nigeria has run hot and cold in recent years. On November 10, 1995, it decided against taking a $300 million stake in a liquified natural gas for export to Europe project, in which Shell has a lead technical role.

The announcement came within hours of the Nigerian government's execution of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others who were demanding compensation for Shell's environmental and social destruction in their Ogoniland villages.

The World Bank said its concerns revolved around economics, not human rights. "We have consistently made it clear that we could only proceed if there was sufficient progress in certain critical areas of macroeconomic reform," said IFC executive vice president Jannik Lindbaek. "While there has been progress on the fiscal and monetary side, key policy decisions have yet to be implemented."

World Bank President James Wolfensohn told a conference of oil executives that the decision to withdraw from the LNG project in Nigeria was based on economics not human rights. "It was a financial judgment, but it was based on an assessment of the political environment. It was a government that I didn't feel we could easily deal with."

The Bank has been exhorting the petroleum-rich Nigerian government to improve its economic environment -- if not its human rights dealings -- ever since. Foreign investment is their requirement.

In a 1996 report on Nigeria, the Bank said, "leasing run-down [oil] facilities requires prior rehabilitation investments whereas divestment can bring in the necessary capital financing in exchange for a lower sale price."

The Nigerian government has responded with moves to allow foreign corporate control over its oil and gas sector. In October 1996, Nigerian Finance Minister Anthony Ani told a symposium organized by the World Bank's MIGA that "privatization will open our economy up for the foreign investment we very much need." He announced that Nigeria would sell its 49% shares in joint ventures and privatize its refineries.

In October 1997, now-deceased Nigerian strongman Gen. Sani Abacha told a national television audience, "We introduced a policy of guarded deregulation of the economy, and government is moving towards disengaging from economic activities that can be effectively undertaken by the private sector...

"The thrust of government policy in the oil industry has been the diversification of our revenue base from crude oil exports by the implementation of several gas-based projects. In the past four years, significant progress has been made in the execution of the liquefied natural gas project, the Escravos gas project, the West Africa gas pipeline project and the petrochemical projects.

"The restoration of order and security to the country together with government's commitment to ensuring future political stability through its political transition programme has created a climate of confidence with the international investment community in the oil sector," he asserted.

Abacha noted, however, that the order and security was being sabotaged, and warned of decisive action against "unpatriotic Nigerians":

"Government has also noted with concern the incessant sabotage of oil production facilities--pipelines
and flowlines carrying crude oil to export terminals. Apart from the inherent risk to life and property,
these activities of some unpatriotic Nigerians can lead to great economic consequences. Government is
therefore developing fresh strategies to cope with these acts of sabotage and decisive action will be
taken against those responsible."

The Consumer

The World Bank's reengagement with Nigeria apperently flowed from satisfaction with Gen. Abacha's economic reforms. A Bank-funded gas-fired power plant in Ghana, which opened just last year, is a new and ready customer, and as such, provides the Bank with a relatively simple project in which it can back these reforms with cash. Its 1995 proposed engagement in the Nigerian LNG export scheme faced considerably higher risks of public uproar, given Western Europe's outrage against Gen. Abacha's executions of the Ogoniland activists. Western Europe was not a captive market. The Bank-backed Takoradi power plant, now owned by CMS Energy of the U.S., is captive and receptive.

In February 1995, the World Bank sparked a wave of foreign investment in the Ghanaian village of Aboadze, near the port of Takoradi, when it approved a $175.6 million IDA credit toward the construction of a 300 megawatt gas power plant. The money purchased three 100 MW turbine generators built by General Electric in the U.S.

The next year, the U.S. energy firm CMS Energy became a 50% owner of the Takoradi plant through a joint venture with the Volta River Authority, and announced plans to double its capacity to 600 megawatts.

In early 1997, according to the Oil & Gas Journal, "Chevron signed a letter of intent to supply Nigerian natural gas to Ghana via Benin and Togo." The destination: the Takoradi power plant.

While Chevron has signed a letter of intent to export gas from its Escravos field in Nigeria to Takoradi in Ghana, other companies and countries are jousting to acquire the contract.

In September 1997, Inter Press Service reported that Shell "has submitted a bid for a 51 percent stake in the newly incorporated West African Gas Pipeline Company (Wapco)... The submission is an attempt to upstage rival, Chevron Nigeria.... In addition, Shell is expecting a positive response from Ghana's power utility, Volta River Authority (VRA), in its bid to again beat Chevron in acquiring the rights to supply gas from the scheme to [the]... thermal plant in Takoradi."

One month later, the Oil and Gas Journal reported that the government of Cote d'Ivoire was vying to supply Takoradi with gas from its offshore gas fields, which were operated by United Meridian Corp. Ironically, in 1995, the Bank's IFC approved $97 million in financing toward the production of oil and gas in Cote d'Ivoire.In late 1997, Takoradi opened, pouring power primarily into Ghana's aluminum export-oriented industry.

On March 13, 1998, disaster struck. An explosion occured in one of the two 100 MW General Electric generators at Takoradi. "Engineers are still assessing the damage. We can't say yet how long the turbine will be closed down," Ellen Essilfie of the VRA said. The VRA ordered the region's mining companies to cut back their production to 2 days a week.

No one was injured, but the malfunction exacerbated Ghana's drought-induced power shortage, and occured just 10 days before President Bill Clinton visited the country. The incident hardly highlighted the quality of U.S. exports.

Sources: IPS/ITIS, Changing the Earth's Climate for Business, May 1997 ; Oil & Gas Journal, March 17, 1997, Sept. 1, 1997; Power Generation Technology & Markets March 6, 1998; Inter Press Service, Aug. 8, 1997; Xinhua News Agency, March 5, 1997, March 25, 1998; AAP Newsfeed, March 20, 1998, Africa Energy & Mining, March 25, 1998; Inter Press Service, April 9, 1998; Reuters, Nov. 17, 1995, Apr. 10 and Oct. 8, 1996, Feb. 13 and 18, 1997; Financial Times, March 13, 1997; Agence France Press, Nov. 10, 1995, March 6, 1997; Reuters European Business Report, Oct. 21, 1996; Calgary Herald, June 22, 1996; World Bank MOS, February 1998; World Bank, "International Gas Trade Roundtable," 1996; NTA TV transcript, October 1, 1997.

Case Study D: Thailand Power Plants

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The Crisis

Thailand, like many other so-called "emerging markets" in Asia, has been hit hard by the Asian currency crisis and deep recession. The government's Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) -- reacting to a decline in domestic demand for power combined with the disappearance of funds -- announced in September that it was postponing some new power plant projects, and that it would reduce power production by 10%.

While electricity demand is in decline, EGAT is contractually bound to consume natural gas from Burma (Myanmar). A controversial pipeline from the Yadana gas field off the Burmese coast to Thailand's massive new Ratchaburi power station was completed in July 1998. The pipeline stretches across mangrove swamps, river valleys and rainforests en route to Ratchaburi. Environmental and human rights activists in Thailand and abroad campaigned strongly against this pipeline project, which is 41% owned by the Burmese military dictatorship, 31% by Total of France, and 28% by Unocal of the U.S.

"Local villagers say that the Burmese army has rounded up tens of thousands of villagers to build this pipeline," charged the Center for International Environmental Law, which cited a 1996 U.S. Embassy report that said "The military continued to force ordinary Burmese on a massive scale (including women and children) to contribute their labor, often under harsh working conditions, on construction projects around the country."

With the deep recession striking Thailand, mere economic considerations also could have scuttled the Burmese pipeline project. Financing difficulties and production problems delayed the import of equipment from General Electric to the Ratchabui station, and the plant is months away from completion. It is now burning a small amount of Burmese gas in a 25 megawatt turbine that EGAT moved from a Shell power plant in Kamphaeng Phet.

Thailand now says the Ratchaburi plant will be built and ready to accept the full quota of Yadana gas by April 1999, nine months after the original target date of July 1998.

"Burma is very unhappy with us because it had high expectations of steady, sizable revenue from the sales and planned to use the money to turn its economy around," said an official with the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), which is brokering the sale of the Burmese gas to the power stations.

"Had the PTT listened to the environmentalists, we would not have wasted a large amount of money and would have saved fertile forest," charged Pibhob Dhongcahi of the Kanchanaburi Conservation Group.

"I'm sure it will be worked out because we invested $1 billion together to have this gas," said John Imle, president of Unocal.

The role of the World Bank

The World Bank jumped into this mess in June 1998, when it began deliberating an emergency $300 million partial risk guarantee to back EGAT's planned investments to expand power production through the year 2000, regardless of Thaliand's decline in power demand.

It explained, "The main objective of the Project is to help EGAT meet its heavy but essential investment commitments during the country's financial crisis. In doing so, the project would help it not lose ground in accomplishing its privatization strategy which is considered to be sound. The Project would not only help EGAT keep on track the implementation of its own generation plants (which it has already begun) but would, through the development of vital transmission infrastructure (which it has also already begun), facilitate the implentation of a large IPP [Independent Power Producers] program for which EGAT has recently finalized power purchase agreements." As of June 1998, EGAT had 2,598MW of power generating capacity contracts with TNC-controlled IPPs.

The Bank's package included $174 million in guarantees for financing the construction of three power stations with a combined capacity of 4100 megawatts (1700MW of coal-fired power; 2400MW of Burmese gas-fired power), along with investments in transmission facilities linking several new TNC-built power plants to the national grid. World Bank targeted its guarantees toward power plant construction to the tune of:

* $74 million for 1400MW of coal-fired power at Ratchaburi,

* $62 million for 1800MW of Burmese gas-fired power at Ratchaburi,

* $20 million for 600MW of gas-fired power at Wang Noi, which is to be connected to the Burma gas field through a new pipeline from Ratchaburi, and

* $19 million for 300MW of coal-fired power at Krabi.

Reaction against Bank project

In Sepember 1998, the Center for International Environmental Law and Earth Rights International activists in Thailand urged the World Bank's board of directors not to fund the Ratchaburi plant "because of the human rights and environmental implications of supporting the project.... The Yadana pipeline has been associated with documented human rights abuses, including forced labor, rape, torture, extrajudicial killing and the forced reolocation of indigenous villages. In fact, a lawsuit has been filed in U.S. federal district court against the multinational corporations that are colluding with SLORC [Burma's ruling junta] in the construction of the pipeline, for their complicity in the violations of international human rights standards."

The activists continued, "in addition to the human rights abuses, the pipeline has also had serious adverse impacts on biodiversity and wildlife. The Yadana pipeline cuts through the Tenasserim rainforest, which prior to construction of the pipeline was the largest intacts rainforest in Southeast Asia. The pipeline route impacts the territory of numerous endangered species, including tigers, elephants and the kitti hog-nosed bat, both in Burma and in Thailand. The pipeline crosses the border into Thailand in a national part, and then also cuts through a protected forest area that has been nominated for national park status.... [T]he bank maintains that it is financing only the power plant, and not its fuel supply. This selective use of analytical blinders is disturbing.... [U]ntil the power plant is finalized, Thailand is unable to accept Burma's gas."

After the Bank's board approved the financial package on September 15, U.S. executive director Jan Piercy thanked the two groups for "bringing the issue to our attention. My office had been unaware of the controversy over Ratchaburi and its link to the Yadana pipeline. Your proactive work to inform Bank staff and other NGOs about the issue may well have averted the inheritance of a major environmental and political problem."

Ms. Piercy's response left CIEL with the impression that the guarantee was approved "under the condition that the power plant was excluded from the guarantee."

But recent press reports from Thailand indicate that construction of the Ratchaburi power plant will continue thanks to the Bank's package. EGAT plans to leverage the Bank's guarantee into a $300 million, 10-year bond issue, which it will use to continue its power generation and tranmission investments. "The money raised through the bond sale will be used to finance the construction of six power projects, including Thailand's largest Ratchaburi Power Plant," reported Business Day of Thailand on October 15, 1998.

On October 8, 1998, the Bangkok Post reported that "Boonchoo Direksathaporn, Egat's deputy governor for finance, said the authority was capable of completing the Ratchaburi plant with $300 million currently being raised from an offshore bond issue."

The Bank's guarantee was essential in EGAT's ability to find foreign buyers of the $300 million issue, said Boonchoo Direkstaporn of EGAT. ''Without the guarantee of the World Bank, Egat would not get an interest rate at 7.1 per cent amidst the economic crisis,'' Boonchoo told the Nation (Oct. 8, 1998), which reported that the bond "is expected to finance six of EGAT's projects, including the Ratchaburi power plant construction and transmission projects."

Even if the Ratchaburi power plant has been delinked from the Bank guarantee, contrary to domestic press reports, other components of the guarantee are as linked to the Burmese gas as Ratchaburi. The project-aided Wang Noi gas-fired power plant is planning to consume the Yadana field's gas through a pipeline from Ratchaburi. Piti Yimprasert, president of PTT Gas, reported Oil & Gas Journal (June 22, 1998), "said there is an urgency to complete the Ratchaburi-Wang Noi pipeline because it would provide an additional outlet for the Myanmar gas that PTT has contracted to purchase."

Further, the guarantee targets transmission facilities from IPPs, some of which are planning to burn Burmese gas (see Bangkok Post, Aug. 1, 1998).

The drive toward privatization

The Bank's quick approval of an emergency financial package to support Thailand's energy sector reveals the extent to which it tries to push privatization of power in developing countries, regardless of the environmental, social, and economic risks. As the Bank itself states, the guarantee "would help [EGAT] not lose ground in accomplishing its privatization strategy which is considered to be sound."

The government's privatization plans include selling off its thermal power plants and introducing independent power producers to the national energy mix. It is also boosting consumer rates by 12% "to placate the World Bank," reported the Nation (Sept. 19, 1998). "It is a necessity for EGAT to adjust its financial position to meet World Bank's requirements," said NEPO secretary-general Dr. Piyasisti Amranand, who said this month that the country's privatization plans, despite the recession, "keep moving on. We are committed to urgently concluding the Ratchaburi deal at a speedy pace."

Ratchaburi, slated to be the largest power plant in Thailand, is at the vanguard of the country's plans to sell-off its power plants. EGAT hopes to sell it for $1 billion. China Light and Power has formed a joint venture with the public Electricity Generating Company of Thailand to bid for the plant. Other potential bidders include Edision Mission Energy (U.S.), El Paso Int'l (U.S.), Singapore Power Int'l, and YTL of Malaysia.

As of June 1998, EGAT had contracts to purchase 2,598MW of power generating capacity with IPPs. This year, villagers in Prachuap Khiri Khan province protested the construction of an IPP plant by Edison Mission. Edison Mission also is in a joint venture with Texaco to build a separate 700MW gas-fired Tri Energy project in Ratchaburi Province, with backing by the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (U.S.) and Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry. It will purchase gas from the PTT.

Other IPPs under consideration include four large plants to be built in the eastern province of Prachuap Khiri Khan, including a 700MW gas-fired power plant headed by Unocal and Westinghouse; Union Energy's 1,400MW coal-fired power plant; and a 734MW coal-fired power plant to be built by Gulf Power. EGAT itself is planning to build a 2000MW coal-fired power plant in the province.

"Why do EGAT officials feel the need to produce so much power when the demand is falling? And at what cost to the environment? For EGAT, the [Ratchaburi] power plant must continue. But who will foot the bill when there is no one to buy the electricity?," asked Supara Janchitfah in the Bangkok Post (Sept. 20, 1998).

Additional Sources: Center for International Environmental Law; Letter from Jan Piercy, U.S. Executive Director of World Bank, to Dana Clarke, CIEL, Sept. 23, 1998; Nation, Oct. 3, 1996, Sept. 13, Sept. 23, 1998; Asia Pulse, Sept. 21, 1998; The Economist, Sept. 26, 1998; Bangkok Post, July 11, Aug. 1, Sept. 16, Oct. 23, 1998; Business Day (Thailand), Oct. 8, Oct. 13, Oct. 19, 1998; Global Power Report, Sept. 18, 1998; Platt's Oilgram News, Sept. 18, 1998; Power Generation Technology & Markets, Sept. 18, 1998; Oil & Gas Journal, Dec. 29, 1997, June 22, Oct. 19, 1998; Power Economics, June 30, Sept. 30, 1998; Oil & Gas Investor, Sept. 1998; Privatisation Int'l, Oct. 1, 1997; AsiaMoney, Nov. 1997; AP Worldstream, Sept. 9, 1994; Independent Energy, April 1998.