IRPC Plc will invest US$200 million to improve the efficiency of its power plant in Rayong, shifting from fuel oil to a gascombined cycle system to cut carbon emissions by 400,000 tonnes per year.
The new 220-megawatt combinedcycle power plant is expected to start operating at the end of next year after a delay of nearly one year, said CEO Pailin Chuchottaworn.
As the new technology allows the plant cut greenhouse gases, the company in-tends to register the plant under the UN's clean development mechanism (CDM) in order to sell carbon credits.
IRPC has appointed General Carbon Pte, a unit of US-based General Electric,as its consultant on carbon trading and the registration process.
The company expects to start selling carbon credits within eight months.
"Upgrading our power plant will not only improve our production cost, but also will prevent damage from power disruptions that have happened quite often lately in Rayong," said Dr Pailin."We can also gain some revenue from carbon trading."
In the past two years IRPC has had five power outages, each costing it 100 million baht."We couldn't stand losses like that anymore since every time the power drops we have to burn crude and chemicals that were in the production line. Otherwise these liquids could turn into bombs and then the damage would be even worse. But the burning creates bad smells that bother nearby communities," he said.
The power plant is a part of the first phase of a $288.7-million, five-year investment plan that began in 2007. Other elements include downstream petrochemical product expansion and safety system improvements.
IRPC is considering revising its $1.184-billion second-phase investment budget because of the global slowdown. This includes deep-sea port upgrading, improvements to oil-refining facilities and downstream chemical expansion.
IRPC shares closed yesterday on the SET at 4.36 baht, down two satang, in trade worth 302.6 million baht.
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