SET-listed Gulf Energy Development Plc has agreed to run a power plant in Oman, the second overseas market for the Thai company.
On Monday, Gulf submitted a letter to the Stock Exchange of Thailand disclosing that subsidiary Gulf International Holding Co (GIH) had received approval from Oman to enter a joint venture with Oman Oil Co (OOC) to invest in a power project of Duqm Power Co (DPC).
OOC and DPC are owned by the government of Oman.
DPC has a gas-fired power project with an installed power-generating capacity of 326 megawatts and an installed water-generating capacity of 1,667 cubic metres per hour.
GIH will hold a 45% stake in DPC, while OOC will own 55%.
GIH has already made a payment for the share purchase of US$8.75 million (290.9 million baht) to OOC and completed the acquiring transaction, said Yupapin Wangviwat, Gulf's senior executive vice-president.
"The DPC power project commenced construction in August," Ms Yupapin said. "The project will have a commercial operation date during 2020-22."
The output of power and water is expected to feed Duqm Refinery and Petrochemical Industrial Co, a large-scale refiner with a capacity of 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Ms Yupapin said the Oman deal is part of Gulf's capacity expansion abroad after moves in Vietnam, where Gulf in August added combined capacity of 340MW at a total project cost of $650 million.
Gulf also expanded into Vietnam through GIH, registered in Singapore, and entered into share purchase and shareholder agreements with Huynh Bich Ngoc, an entrepreneur investing in various large-scale enterprises in Vietnam.
GIH holds 49% and Ms Huynh owns 51% in developing and operating a 310MW wind farm project and a 30MW solar farm project in Ben Tre province.
The wind farm has two phases, with commercial operation dates in 2020 and 2023. The power will be sold to Vietnam Electricity.
The solar farm is expected to start commercial operation in June 2019.
Back home, Gulf has two licences to develop two gas-fired power plants under the independent power producer (IPP) programme after winning an auction in 2013 for a combined capacity of 5,000MW.
The first IPP licence is scheduled to obtain a 40-billion-baht loan from several financial institutions for development through Gulf SRC Co.
A contract signing for the loan is expected on Nov 9. The first IPP project is in Chon Buri's Sri Racha district with a capacity of 2,500MW. The commercial operation date is around 2021-22.
The second IPP licence is set to close a loan agreement in 2020 under development of Gulf PD Co. The commercial operation date is around 2023-24.
Gulf holds 19 licences of the small power producer programme, 15 of which have begun commercial operation. The remaining four projects are under construction.
Gulf will have power capacity of 5,282MW by year-end, up from 5,028MW in April.