Minister:There will be no shortage of LPG, NGV in Thailand

BANGKOK, February 26 (TNA) - Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal has assured that Thailand will face no shortage of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Natural Gas for Vehicles (NGV) in April, 2013 when Myanmar will temporarily suspend its gas supply to the Thai side for maintenance of its Yanada Gas Field, thanks to timely preparations for coping with the situation by agencies concerned. Pongsak insisted on Tuesday that his ministry and other agencies concerned have already prepared measures to cope with the situation, and that Thailand’s LPG supply remains high and gas separation plants in the Thai East can continue their normal operations during Myanmar's suspension of gas supply to Thailand. Given back-up measures prepared by his ministry, Pongsak affirmed that there will be no shortage of NGV supply in Thailand in April either, urging the public not to panic and not to hoard LPG, which is also known as cooking gas, as the Kingdom is believed to overcome the situation with sufficient LPG and NGV supply for local households and the local transport sector. Pongsak said he has also instructed his ministry's Department of Energy Business to inspect gas filling plants and stations to make sure that there will be no manipulation to hoard LPG for profiteering, either. The energy minister acknowledging that there might be a power blackout in some areas in April, calling on cooperation from all sectors in Thailand, including local households and business offices and industries alike, to help conserve their energy consumption over the next couple of months. In response to reports that Myanmar might lengthen its suspension of gas supply to Thailand, beyond the April 5-14-period its earlier announced, for extended maintenance of its production bases, the energy minister foresaw that the extension should not be longer than one more week and it should not, thus, affect power production in Thailand, pointing out that domestic power demand, estimated to be peak at 15,000-20,000 megawatts a day during the extended period, would remain lower than the country's power production capacity at 27,000 megawatts a day. (TNA)