The Energy Ministry has ordered the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) to speed up negotiations with Malaysia's Petronas LNG in order to seek a resolution to a suspended plan to import 1.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas.
Energy Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong said the talks between the two parties should reach a conclusion that avoids any compensation claims by Petronas.
On Aug 30, the Energy Policy Administration Committee (Epac) decided to cancel the 1.5-million-tonne LNG purchase order made by Egat to Petronas LNG.
Egat selected Petronas as the winning bidder for the purchase, but Epac froze Egat's LNG plan on May 16.
Mr Sontirat said Epac's resolution to put off the LNG import plan has not been acted on yet, as Egat has to negotiate with Petronas to cancel the deal in accordance with the auction's expression of interest.
"Egat has to report the negotiation results very soon, and the ministry will discuss the matter at Epac's next meeting," Mr Sontirat said. "A gas purchasing agreement has yet to be signed."
PTT LNG is the third party and would have stored the LNG at PTT's receiving terminal at Map Ta Phut, Rayong.
Epac, meanwhile, allowed Egat to import 180,000 tonnes of LNG bought on spot markets in two cargoes to test Egat's readiness to trade LNG using PTT's gas pipeline.
Mr Sontirat said Epac had to cancel Egat's LNG plan because of concerns over whether the 1.5-million-tonne shipment was an appropriate volume and reasonably priced.
For the 1.5 million tonnes, Epac's calculations found that Egat's import plan would raise the cost of the state power tariff by two satang per kilowatt-hour for the two price standards of the country's pool gas system.
Separately, the Energy Ministry announced that Thailand will not adopt a strategic petroleum reserve for 50 days to tackle the global crude oil shortage stemming from the refinery attack in Saudi Arabia.
Mr Sontirat said the overall situation in Saudi Arabia is recovering, while the ministry has reduced levy collection from fuel users to the state Oil Fund in order to freeze retail fuel prices.
The ministry also denied a request from oil refiners and traders to decrease their crude oil reserve requirement from 6% to 5% of sales volume.