Sabah gas

A new project is in process for petronas for the Sabah gas. Project cost is expected to be rm2bil located at Lahat Datu Sabah. The produce of the project is 200MW of electricity. It will have to main components, the power plant to generate the electricity and the LNG terminal.

We do hope they still remember the bakun dam which was intended to produce 2400 MW of power. A few years ago, the country was very concern about who will be consuming the excess power. There was even talk making the distribution connection to west Malaysia.

It does seem odd that TNB has a standby plant in Langkawi. The shortage of electricity in Sabah is so critical that the dismantling efforts has already started to move the 70MW plants to Sabah. The job is scheduled to complete by July 2012.

Consultants had already been appointed and the initial EIA environmental effect assessment has already started.

Commenting on the Sabah gas project, it is not a good practice to have a long transmission line. The 300 km line is too long as it will be subjected to frequent breakdown due to the lightnings strike and falling trees. If this happen, the whole area will be blackout.

People is baffled by the issue of IPP, or independent power producer, when the government owned TNB had to buy the power at higher cost than the market price. The government insists that this matter is an official secret of the country and suppose to protect the interest of the country. Many feel that this is a business contract, and the official secret acts is used as a matter of convenience to protect other that the country.