Energy policymakers yesterday agreed to keep the retail price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) unchanged at 20.29 baht a kilogramme for another month despite the continued rise in global gas prices.
At its monthly meeting, the Energy Policy Administration Committee (Epac) approved a retail LPG price of 20.29 a kg, the same as in April, though the benchmark propane contract price of Saudi Aramco rose to US$347 a tonne from $332 last month.
Twarath Sutabutr, director-general of the Energy Policy and Planning Office, said the price could be maintained because of the lower price of natural gas from fields in the Gulf of Thailand.
Thailand consumes natural gas from various sources, including the Gulf of Thailand, with extraction mostly done by SET-listed PTT Exploration and Production.
Lower gas prices in Gulf of Thailand fields have dragged down domestic benchmark prices by 12 satang a kg to 13.9 baht a kg.
A decrease in Thailand's LPG production cost has also helped ease the financial burden of the state Oil Fund, which is subsidising local retail LPG prices for consumers to the tune of 58 satang a kg, down from 71 satang in April.
Prasert Sinsukprasert, deputy director-general of Epac, said yesterday that due to the lower cost of LPG, the fund will have a burden from gas price subsidies of 213 million baht a month, down by 43 million per month.
Epac also approved a plan by national energy conglomerate PTT Plc for a second liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in order to ensure energy security amid delays in development of coal-fired power plants in Krabi and Songkhla.
"We need the option to make sure the electricity will be running without any disruption even though we cannot build new plants because of strong opposition from communities," Mr Prasert said.
"The booming tourism in the area has pushed demand up tremendously for years."
PTT has designed the second LNG receiving terminal to handle 5 million tonnes a year at an investment cost of 36.8 million baht.
But Epac had voiced concerns about depletion of natural gas from the Gulf of Thailand and ordered PTT to prepare additional capacity of up to 7.5 million tonnes, pushing the investment cost to 38.5 million baht.
The second LNG receiving terminal is scheduled to begin operating in 2023.
The location is set for Rayong near the first LNG terminal, which has a capacity of 5 million tonnes.
In the longer term, Epac has ordered PTT to prepare to invest in floating storage regasification facilities in the Gulf of Thailand and in Myanmar, as the company will be able to import gas in other forms to process at its facilities and feed it into power plants.
The two coal-fired power plants in the South are expected to commence operations during 2022-23 at the earliest.
In the meantime, sole LNG importer PTT will have time to prepare development of the second LNG receiving terminal.