In the context of the energy industry undergoing landmark changes, the irreversible trend of energy transition, emission reduction, and green economic development has posed many urgent requirements for the operations of the Vietnamese oil and gas industry in general and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group ( Petrovietnam ) in particular. To facilitate sustainable development, the Politburo issued Conclusion No. 76-KL/TW dated April 24, 2024, affirming the orientation and policy to allow Petrovietnam to participate in the value chain of new energy, renewable energy, especially the development of offshore wind power projects.
The trend is irreversible.
Faced with urgent demands to combat climate change and the commitment to achieve Net Zero by countries and large corporations, the world is witnessing a strong shift to developing renewable energy to gradually replace fossil energy sources. In this trend, large oil and gas corporations have been and continue to spend tens of billions of dollars on renewable energy development programs, gradually reducing their portfolio of fossil energy projects.
Offshore wind power has emerged as one of the sectors with the greatest potential for development. Currently, the world's leading investors in the offshore wind power sector are mostly large oil and gas corporations, such as Equinor, Shell, Repsol, Total, BP, Chevron, CNOC, etc. Among them, there are companies, such as Orsted (Denmark), that have completely switched to renewable energy projects. Orsted has currently installed about 9,000 MW of offshore wind power and aims to reach 50,000 MW of installed capacity by 2030. Equinor (Norway) is also gradually reducing the proportion of oil and gas and gradually increasing the proportion of renewable energy. Equinor currently has nearly 12,000 MW of offshore wind power under development, of which some projects have been put into operation.
In Southeast Asia, Malaysia's national oil and gas group Petronas has established the renewable energy company Gentari and purchased a 29.4% stake in the Hai Long offshore wind power project in Taiwan (China).
It can be seen that the energy transition, in which offshore wind power plays a key role, is an inevitable and irreversible trend globally. This transition has been taking place extremely quickly and strongly, any energy corporation/country that is slow will be left behind. Vietnam, with its high economic openness and global integration, has set goals and built plans to develop the offshore wind power industry.
According to the Power Plan VIII approved by the Prime Minister in May 2023, by 2030, offshore wind power capacity serving domestic electricity demand will reach about 6,000 MW; the scale can be increased further in case of rapid technology development, reasonable electricity prices and transmission costs. By 2050, the total offshore wind power capacity is expected to reach 70,000-91,500 MW. Setting ambitious goals for the development of the offshore wind industry brings many important benefits to Vietnam.
The development of offshore wind power contributes to ensuring national energy security, reducing fossil fuel imports, while creating many new jobs, promoting the development of the marine economy as well as developing energy industry infrastructure, making an important contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector in Vietnam.
Foundation and solid steps
In reality, the oil and gas industry and offshore wind power have very high similarities, especially in the stages of survey, assessment, project development, operation, maintenance, repair and dismantling...; both have requirements for logistics and support services such as manufacturing yards, port bases, operation and maintenance centers, service ships...; both exploit offshore resources, closely related to security, sovereignty over islands and exclusive economic zones.
In order to develop offshore wind power on a large scale, multinational oil and gas corporations play a very important role. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the oil and gas industry with experience in implementing offshore projects will contribute to sharing supply chains and technology, the participation of oil and gas corporations will play an important role in turning offshore wind power into a major industry soon.
According to Dr. Nguyen Quoc Thap, Chairman of the Vietnam Petroleum Association, experience in exploration, exploitation, design, construction and manufacture of marine works, offshore services, facilities, human resources, information and understanding of meteorology, hydrology, geology, marine chemistry, etc. are favorable conditions for enterprises in the oil and gas industry to participate in the field of offshore renewable energy. This also contributes to optimizing investment, avoiding waste of national resources, increasing efficiency, and reducing production costs.
Sharing the same view, Dr. Ngo Duc Lam - energy expert, former Deputy Director of the Institute of Energy (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said that in Vietnam, enterprises capable of participating in offshore wind power projects must be large corporations and groups with strong experience and financial potential. Currently, Petrovietnam and Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) are capable of piloting the development of offshore wind power projects. Petrovietnam is a state-owned enterprise with great potential, prestige, and experience in the energy sector, especially offshore oil and gas; has technology and the ability to arrange capital more conveniently than other enterprises. Petrovietnam's specialty is operating in the field of oil and gas exploitation with its main location of operations at sea. Petrovietnam and its member units are considered to have the most advantages in Vietnam when carrying out offshore projects from many aspects, such as data investigation, international relations, offshore human resources, manufacturing, operation, and even security and defense.
Currently, Petrovietnam is one of the leading state-owned economic groups, playing a key role and position in the economy, contributing to ensuring energy security, economic security, food security as well as participating in and contributing to ensuring national security and sovereignty at sea. With the mission of pioneering in the energy sector, since 2019, Petrovietnam and a number of member units have focused on assessing and researching the issue of energy transition to adjust, catch up with trends, and make the most of strengths. In particular, orienting the trend of shifting to green and clean energy through increasing the proportion of gas, producing H2 and developing offshore wind power.
Petrovietnam is striving to promote all available advantages to participate in the supply chain and develop offshore wind power projects in Vietnam, increase the localization rate of equipment, reduce electricity production costs to create a premise for developing hydrogen energy in the future.Dr. Le Manh Hung, Chairman of Petrovietnam Board of Members
Along with the history of development of Vietnam's oil and gas industry, Petrovietnam has built a modern infrastructure and technical system, a workforce of nearly 60,000 high-quality workers who can be investors, EPCI general contractors, and contractors providing high-quality technical services, serving offshore projects.
Petrovietnam's strengths when participating in energy transition in general and offshore wind power in particular are, firstly, that Petrovietnam is the only enterprise in Vietnam that has national seabed geological data collected and stored during the process of surveying, searching, and exploring oil and gas. Petrovietnam has the necessary capacity to provide survey services (seabed survey, physical engineering survey, etc.) which are regularly performed work items in oil and gas activities and pre-feasibility studies for offshore wind power projects.
In fact, with the data and knowledge about the marine environment accumulated from the process of research, exploration and exploitation of oil and gas, the Vietnam Petroleum Institute (VPI) has proactively conducted research and cooperated with international partners to assess the geological, environmental and hydrographic conditions of the seabed, researched the application of advanced AI to analyze high-resolution seismic data and integrate geological and geotechnical data into an integrated foundation model as a basis for foundation design, selecting optimal locations for offshore wind turbines and submarine cables.
Second, during the construction and installation phase, Petrovietnam with its abundant, professional design team, well-trained in the fields of construction structure, electricity, etc., equipped with specialized copyrighted software, Petrovietnam has been carrying out all design stages from drafting plans, to basic design, detailed design, construction design for offshore exploitation projects and is fully capable of undertaking design items for offshore wind power projects.
Third, in the operation and maintenance (O&M) phase, Petrovietnam has strengths in facilities, equipment, human resources and nearly 40 years of experience in operating and maintaining power projects, as well as offshore oil and gas projects such as oil and gas service ports, a fleet of offshore support vessels, onshore repair and maintenance facilities and high-quality human resources that have served O&M for oil and gas projects of a nature similar to offshore wind power.
Petrovietnam owns almost complete infrastructure and equipment to serve the offshore wind power industry with large-scale ports and manufacturing yards such as Sao Mai - Ben Dinh port, Vietsovpetro, PTSC M&C, PVShipyard, Dung Quat, Nghi Son, Dinh Vu; Petrovietnam's units such as: Petroleum Technical Services Corporation (PTSC), Vietsovpetro Joint Venture (VSP), Petroleum Transportation Corporation (PVTrans) ... currently own and manage a fleet of nearly 100 service vessels, diverse in capacity and type ... operated entirely by a team of competent and experienced Vietnamese crew members who can well meet offshore wind power projects.
Petrovietnam also has strong financial capacity, manages many large-capital projects, has mutual linkages in the oil and gas value chain, has extensive cooperation with foreign partners in the energy sector, and has many opportunities to cooperate and acquire knowledge and technology on advanced energy transition in the world.
In recent times, Petrovietnam units such as Vietsovpetro, PTSC... have signed memorandums of understanding, confidentiality agreements, bilateral cooperation, survey/service provision contracts with offshore wind power investors around the world. Petrovietnam has received many proposals from large corporations in the world such as Equinor, Orsted, CIP, Macquarie... to cooperate in developing offshore wind power projects in Vietnam. Petrovietnam has currently signed memorandums of understanding with Equinor and CIP (Denmark) to study opportunities for developing offshore wind power and other clean energy sources in Vietnam.
Petrovietnam's capacity in the field of offshore wind power has been proven in recent years, when PTSC - a member unit of the Group, has proactively participated in providing wind power and offshore wind power services to many domestic and foreign contractors and has achieved existing successes.
To prepare for offshore wind power development projects, PTSC has prepared very early before adding wind power to its business lines, from marketing activities, finding partners through specialized seminars on wind power of embassies of countries with offshore wind power capacity such as Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany... to updating information as well as strategic trends in offshore wind power development in Vietnam and major countries in the world.
PTSC General Director Le Manh Cuong said that PTSC has more than 30 years of experience in providing technical services for large domestic and international oil and gas projects. In particular, in the field of oil and gas mechanics, more than 100 projects have been successfully implemented domestically and internationally; in particular, the projects that PTSC won international bids for are projects with strict technical and progress requirements. To date, PTSC has been assessed by experts as having full capacity to invest in project development as well as provide a chain of services for the offshore wind power industry.
In the past three years, PTSC has quickly entered the offshore wind power value chain. To date, the company has won bids for more than 10 offshore wind power projects with a total generating capacity of 5.2GW and a total contract value of more than 1.2 billion USD, providing most of the service stages for offshore wind power projects, including survey, design, procurement, construction, transportation, installation, operation, maintenance and repair. 100% of the projects are export projects, creating direct jobs for more than 4,000 workers.
In particular, PTSC has been cooperating with Sembcorp Group (SCU - Singapore) to implement the first steps in cooperation to invest in an offshore wind farm in Vietnam with an initial expected capacity of about 2.3GW, exporting electricity directly to Singapore via a high-voltage submarine cable across the sea...
This project has been granted a license by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Vietnam for PTSC to carry out monitoring, investigation, survey and assessment of marine resources; at the same time, PTSC's partner SCU has also been granted a Letter of Intent by the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore to approve this project.
As soon as the authorities support, create a legal corridor, promptly approve and allow to conduct surveys, exploit the sea area and export electricity, PTSC will soon launch the project to be able to have commercial electricity before 2035.
Along with PTSC, Vietsovpetro is also one of the units identified as having great potential and strengths to participate in the offshore wind power sector. With good financial resources, high-quality human resources, a good understanding of offshore technology, suitable equipment and infrastructure, seaport systems, logistics services, service fleets, etc.
To prepare resources for the offshore renewable energy race, Petrovietnam has been proactively building a domestic supply chain including member units with great potential, such as: PTSC, Vietsovpetro, VPI, (Petroleum Engineering Consulting Corporation - JSC (PVE), Petroleum General Services Corporation (PETROSETCO), Petroleum Drilling and Well Services Corporation (PVD), Petroleum Equipment Installation and Metal Structure Corporation (PVC-MS), PV Shipyard...
Petrovietnam's key units in design, manufacture, construction and operation of offshore oil and gas projects such as PTSC, Vietsovpetro, (Petroleum Construction Joint Stock Corporation (PETROCONs) have been assigned by the Group to research and establish a renewable energy value chain development consortium; with available capacity, experience and infrastructure, enhance cooperation, promote each other's capacity, coordinate to seek opportunities to participate in offshore renewable energy projects at home and abroad.
New development space for Petrovietnam
At the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), the Prime Minister also demonstrated his political determination to the world by declaring that Vietnam will strive to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. To fulfill this commitment, many requirements are set for transforming the development model towards a green, circular, and sustainable economy.
In the new situation, to maximize the potential, experience, and existing foundation of the country's leading energy group, Petrovietnam; to ensure energy security and promote the development of new energy sources and green energy, on April 24, 2024, the Politburo issued Conclusion No. 76-KL/TW on the implementation of Resolution No. 41-NQ/TW on the orientation of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Industry Development Strategy to 2025, with a vision to 2035, and some orientations for the new period.
Conclusion No. 76-KL/TW opening up a new development space for Petrovietnam through orienting policies to exploit the conditions and potentials of the industry in developing renewable energy and new energy. For Petrovietnam, Conclusion No. 76-KL/TW oriented to develop the Group into a national industrial-energy group, in parallel with the development of traditional fields of the oil and gas industry, but at the same time also determining the leading pioneering role of the Group in developing the fields of renewable energy and new energy. Typically, developing offshore wind power, coastal wind power, activities in developing the field of hydrogen, ammonia, participating in the import and supply chain of LNG, as well as simultaneously determining the role of Petrovietnam in developing the field of energy equipment manufacturing industry, especially renewable energy and new energy.Dr. Nguyen Duc Hien - Deputy Head of the Central Economic Commission
With more than 3,200km of coastline and a total sea area of about 1 million km2, Vietnam has the largest potential for offshore renewable energy development in Southeast Asia, up to 599GW. When this new energy source is effectively exploited, Vietnam can combine the goals of socio-economic growth, energy security, national defense security, sovereignty over islands, industrialization with low carbon emissions towards the goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
Conclusion No. 76-KL/TW has opened a major path for Petrovietnam to proactively build a strategy and roadmap for the development of the offshore wind power industry, contributing to making Vietnam soon become a country that masters technology, has a complete supply chain to compete in the international arena, seizes "golden" opportunities, and strives to develop strongly in the field of clean energy.
In the current context, in addition to difficulties and challenges, there are also great opportunities for the oil and gas industry if we promptly grasp and promote the strengths of experience, infrastructure capacity, facilities and high-quality human resources. In the context of energy transition, it is necessary to focus on promoting the potential and advantages of the industry to develop renewable energy and new energy, this is a breakthrough development direction; ensure sustainable and modern development of the oil and gas industry associated with accelerating green transformation and digital transformation, at the same time with the development of advanced and modern processing and manufacturing industries in the direction of improving self-reliance and self-reliance, increasing the localization rate; pay attention to developing high-quality human resources associated with policies to attract talents, specialized training to meet international requirements and standards to develop the oil and gas industry in the context of increasingly deep international economic integration.Comrade Tran Luu Quang - Member of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Economic Commission, Deputy Prime Minister
Source: https://baolangson.vn/dien-gio-ngoai-khoi-dong-luc-moi-cho-nganh-dau-khi-viet-nam-phat-trien-ben-vung-5020060.html
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