Gas To Be Promoted As National Fuel

[george]

Gas to be promoted as national fuel

BANGKOK: -- The government is preparing to promote natural gas as Thailand's main alternative to oil, a move which Energy Minister Viset Choopiban hopes will help reduce the nation's trade deficit.

Under the new proposals, outlined by the energy minister today, gas will be promoted as the main choice for vehicles, industries and electricity generation.

Car manufacturers have already welcomed government support for the production of vehicles which run on natural gas for vehicles (NGV), which costs around half the price of diesel.

"The cabinet has approved in principle the idea of tax breaks to promote the use of natural gas as a fuel", Mr. Viset said.

"We expect this to lead to a shift towards gas…which will help reduce the problem of high oil prices", he added.

He also ruled out any further increases in the prices of diesel and cooking gas in the second quarter of the year, noting that global oil prices were now on a downward slide.

But he admitted that world oil prices remain volatile, and confirmed that more diesel price hikes were planned for the future, possibly during the next cold season.

He also acknowledged that government diesel subsidies in the past had led to a shift from gasoline to diesel use, but said that this was likely to change in the wake of the government's recent Bt3 per litre increase in diesel prices.

The first quarter of this year saw a 5.9 percent drop in oil imports, to 869,000 barrels a day, but the value of imports continued to push upwards, rising 24.4 percent to hit Bt134 billion.

Although the government remains insistent that the price of diesel and cooking gas will eventually be floated, the energy minister said that the flotation would not occur until world prices take a tumble.

--TNA 2005-05-03

[astral]

Think again.

Gas and oil have the same origins and both are fast running out.

Perhaps cars running on the hot air produced by politicians would be a better option?

[Jai Dee]

Think again.

Gas and oil have the same origins and both are fast running out.

Actually Thailand has a lot of oil and gas fields in the gulf, and many more are being constantly discovered. The big players are currently on a very agressive exploration and production campaign... PTTEP, Chevron, and Unocal (recently acquired by Chevron) are all furiously building new platforms to recover predominantly gas from these reserves.

Perhaps cars running on the hot air produced by politicians would be a better option?

Now that I'd like to see!

My concern with the government promoting NGV as the preferred vehicular fuel of the future, is the safety standards and implementation of them involved not only at the filling stations, but also with the production and fitting of the cylinders to vehicles. There can be no short cuts, requiring adequate training and inspection, and enforcement of those safety standards is something that cannot be taken lightly.

[DaveYo]

If this is so that Thailand has a spiffy of some oil and gas reserves right in their own backyard, then all they have to do now is build some large refinerys right on their own turf, and presto they will be independent of the Oil Cartel and the price of their fuel will drop quickly and gas be a real cheapie like maybe 25 USA cents per gallon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! , or around just 6 baht per liter. It takes 4 liters to make one USA gallon. Just like the old days.

If this happens then perhaps finally THAILAND CAN LAUGH AT THE WHOLE WORLD, and really make their Land of Smiles worth smiling about totally.

When this happens then Thailand can sell some of it at the Worlds Price per barrel and really make a huge financial gain and windfall. This would be technically their real ticket to becoming a First Class country. With this money then they can really use it to the best of their ability and build this country from the ground up and eliminate all their problems one by one in a very quick manner, and still have more than enough to go around to take care of their citizens overall.

This is the real Dream and the real Goal of USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They definitely want to be completely out of the grasp of being controlled by the Oil Cartel and other countries that sell their oil. Russia can also do the very same for themselves if they were smart enough and not complain about a Billion Dollars worth of back taxes etc.

I wonder about the leaders themselves not seeing the vision correctly, particularly those who have all these oil reserves. They must really get their eyes examine and get fitted with some proper specs so they can see straight.

Daveyo

[Jai Dee]

If this is so that Thailand has a spiffy of some oil and gas reserves right in their own backyard, then all they have to do now is build some large refinerys right on their own turf, and presto they will be independent of the Oil Cartel and the price of their fuel will drop quickly and gas be a real cheapie like maybe 25 USA cents per gallon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! , or around just 6 baht per liter.    It takes 4 liters to make one USA gallon.  Just like the old days.

Thailand already has a number of refineries doing exactly that.

Thailand also has a number of associated petrochemical plants that use feedstock from the refineries to produce other products like polypropylene, plastics, detergents etc.

These refineries and petrochemical plants were designed, constructed, and owned by multinational companies who, like every business anywhere in the world, wants to make a buck... not every baht of profit goes back into Thailand.

The oil companies doing the exploration and production are also multinationals (with the exception of PTTEP) who have to recover the huges costs of exploration and drilling, as well as the capital involved with the construction of offshore platforms and associated pipelines.

Although labour is cheap here in Thailand, the costs of recovery, production, and refining of fossil fuels are much the same as they are in the western world. And, most of the material required to build the facilities has to be imported.

It's a nice thought to be totally independent, but not practical in reality.

[banchang]

Dave Yo I like your idea of economics but unfortunatly it dose not work like that!.Oil fields are sold of to huge international firms to explore/develope and the price of the oil is set at world oil market price in U S dollars.