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Thailand aims to be regional energy hub, will boost reserves

Reuters, Bangkok
Thailand aims to revive a long-stalled plan to become an oil trading and biofuel hub in Southeast Asia, challenging Singapore's dominance, its new energy minister said onThursday.
The net oil importer plans to boost its crude reserves, excluding refined oil products, to 29 days from 18 days now to improve energy security, said Pichai Naripthaphan, as consumers face volatile crude prices which continue to hold above $100 a barrel..
"If we have the land bridge, Thailand has the potential to become a center for oil trading and a leader in biofuel in the region," he said without giving details when the plan will take shape.
The land bridge — a plan dating back more than 20 years to build a 180 km (112 mile) trans-peninsula rail, road and pipeline link between the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea -- would speed up the transport of crude oil from the Middle East for refining.
The original $700 million southern Thailand project was stalled after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which prompted the government of then premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, to conduct a review before it was scrapped in 2005.
"We have crude reserves for just 18 days, which is quite low. For security reasons, we should have more and we want to boost it by another 11 days," said Pichai, who was appointed to the post in the new government
of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's sister, who came to power after the July 3 elections.
To boost reserves, the government is encouraging state-controlled PTT Pci and its group to invest overseas, especially in neighbouring countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam, Pichai said.
Thailand is negotiating on concessions for four or five new petroleum fields in Myanmar, both onshore and offshore, and aimed to resolve a dispute on territory with Cambodia next year, he said.
The government recently announced plans to restructure retail prices by reimposing a levy on some gasoline and diesel
from mid-January to help stabilize the state Oil Fund.
The new measures, which include gradual rises in prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural gas for vehicles (NGV), would let retail fuel prices gradually adjust to reflect actual costs, although the government still planned to subsidize some sectors such as mass transport, Pichai said.
Thailand continued to promote the use of "green" gasohol and encouraged ethanol makers to produce more to meet rising demand, he said.
The country is to stop selling 91-octane gasoline in late 2012, which should boost demand for ethanol by 700,000-800,000 liters a day, Pichai said, adding
the new gasoline prices should make gasohol more attractive to motorists.
"Demand for ethanol will definitely bounce back next year, when we resume collecting moneyfortheOilFunds," hesaid.
Pichai said demand for gasoline rose 20 percent in late August after the government suspended levies on the fuel that brought the prices close to those of gasohol.
"And demand for gasohol dropped by around 20 percent because people switched back to pure benzene, which were cheaper after we removed the levies," he said adding the shortterm move was one of the government's promises during the election campaign.
Thailand's domestic ethanol consumption stood at 1.5 million liters per day, while total production capacity was at 3.0 million liters per day. The capacity should triple to 9.0 million liters a day, if Thailand becomes the trading hub, Pichai said.
Ethanol producers had to switch to export more ethanol in the past couple of months to survive, after domestic demand fell sharply due to the government policy to remove levies on gasoline prices.
The country has exported 60 million liters of ethanol so far this year, up from 45 million liters shipped for the whole of 2010, to major buyers such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines and China, said the Thai Ethanol Manufacturing Association.
The government also planned to promote the use of NGV and aimed to import less LPG next year given NGV was safer, he said.
The ministry was drafting a new power development plan, aimed at focusing more on renewable energy and clean coal power plants.
Under the draft, renewables should account for a quarter of fuel in the next 10 years, up from 20 percent in the previous plan, while the proportion of natural gas should drop to half from 70 percent. Renewables account for about 6 percent of fuel now.
Thailand aims to diversify its energy sources after it put nuclear power plants on hold as a result of the nuclear crisis in the aftermath of Japan's earthquake and tsunami in March.