QuangTri (VNA) – The Korea Western Power Co. (KOWEPO) of the Republic ofKorea plans to construct a 1,200MW coal-fired power plant in the centralprovince of Quang Tri in 2018.

Provincialofficials said the plant was expected to become operational in 2021.

Accordingto a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the project signed last month, KOWEPOwill invest 1.85 billion USD in building the Quang Tri Power Plant No 2, whichwill be located in the province’s Southeast Economic Zone.

KOWEPOwill own and operate the power plant for 25 years. It will also carry outconstruction management and operations and maintenance (O&M) services.

“Wewill establish a growth base in Vietnam and make a full-scale entry into theIndochina power generation market by successfully completing this project,”Jung Young-chul, general manager of the Planning and Management Division ofKOWEPO, said in a statement on the company’s website.

TheKorean firm is also preparing a basic investment prospectus for the project forcompleting the plant by the end of 2024.

Accordingto KOWEPO, the power plant will supply power to Quang Tri Industrial Park andEconomic Zone, as well as main development projects of the province.

Lastyear, the province granted investment licences to 15 projects worth 10 trillionVND (444 million USD).

Theprovince, situated on the East-West Economic Corridor and Trans-Asia road linkwith Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, has called for foreign investment in organicand hi-tech farming and the processing industry.

Inthe 2011-15 period, Quang Tri attracted 262 domestic and foreign projects witha combined investment capital of about 50.3 trillion VND (more than 2.23billion USD).

Theprovince also plans a 14,000ha farm as a high-tech zone that will produce lotusmilk and host a freshwater fish aquaculture centre.

In2015, Thai company One Asian signed a MoU with the province to investapproximately 2.4 billion USD in a 1,200 MW thermal power plant starting in 2017and finishing in 2019.

TheThai investor also agreed to study the development of an energy complex in thesoutheast economic zone that would combine power plants with the My Thuy deepwater port project, and natural gas-fired power plants to take advantage of the30 billion cubic metre gas reserves off the central coast of Vietnam.

Alsoin 2015, another Thai investor, EGATI, said it was planning to invest 2.26billion USD in the 1,200-MW Quang Tri thermal power plant project on abuild-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. The plant is expected to commencecommercial operations in 2021.-VNA