Pipeline incidents a policy wake-up call

       Thailand's power system is at risk of blackouts as policymakers have failed to manage the fuel balance, especially gas supplies, energy experts admit.
       A pipeline leak in Kanchanaburi on Sunday resulted in the disruption of gas supplies from Burma's Yadana and Yetagun fields for western provinces of Thailand. At the same time, repairs were under way to a leak in the pipeline bringing gas from the Gulf of Thailand.
       The total drop in gas supply was 2,100 million standard cubic feet a day (mmscfd), including 1,100 mmscfd from Burma,400 mmscfd from the MalaysiaThai Joint Development Area and 600 mmscfd from the Bongkot field in the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand uses about 3,500 mmscfd of gas for its power plants.
       The gas shortage forced the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand to immediately increase output from its hydroelectricity generators to prevent a power shortage, but this led to floods that damaged communities nearby.
       "This is a valuable lesson that we should have better power management,fuel balance and crisis management.We need to review our power management policy immediately," said Twarath Sutabutr, director of the Policy and Strategy Co-ordination Office at the Energy Ministry.
       "This is a warning sign telling us we depend too much on natural gas. The country's power production relies on gas for around 70% of total capacity, so that when we have a gas supply disruption, our power security turns out to be not secure at all."
       In the past, Thailand has overcome isolated gas supply disruptions but it never had to deal with three outages at the same time, said Dr Twarath.
       Last year, a gas pipeline from Burma sprang a leak but officials offset the shortage with fuel oil to generate power.
       Fuels such as coal and nuclear power are seen as good choices since coal represents only 16-18% of total power production, planners say.
       The Energy Ministry is now revising again its 15-year power development plan (PDP) to reflect prevailing and forecast economic conditions. The latest incident will be take into consideration as well when officials look at fuel usage.