Typical Project of Vietnam - US Collaborative Relationship

 

Well actually, we made our first trip to Vietnam back in the late 1990s. On our first visit to Vietnam we met with the Government of Vietnam to look for potential opportunities and we actually executed a memorandum of understanding with the Vietnamese Government for the Mong Duong II projects back in 2005. That’s really when we started the Mong Duong II project, and then over the next 5 years we negotiated the project agreements with the Vietnamese Government from 2005 until 2010, and commenced the execution of the Mong Duong II project in December 2010 once financial closing was completed.

 

Yes, after 4 years of being in Vietnam on this project, we are very proud of being able to complete the overall facility in April 22nd, which is much earlier than our commitment to the Government, which is October 1st of this year. So we are very proud of that fact. First and foremost, we are very proud that the majority of the work was performed by Vietnamese workers. We worked nearly 44 million man hours and we were able to work all those hours safely, which was our number one goal on a project. If you execute a project safely and focus on safety, typically you will remain on schedule as well, so that’s probably the most important aspect of the project; safety. And we had good workers and good supervision of those workers to be able to keep on the schedule that we have set for ourselves. AES has a lot of experience in new countries and new markets, and we own over 120 power plants. We have a very large instruction groups and construction pipeline at AES Corporation and currently have over US$10 billion in construction management by our company. So we are very proud of the achievement of the team during that period of time.

 

I would also say that we have great cooperation from Quang Ninh province, EVN and Vinacomin, who work very closely with us to resolve any issues identified during the implementation of the project. They enable us to maintain and stay on the schedule that we have set for ourselves.

 

We are very proud that the AES Corporation has the first title submitted into the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and achieved the top quartile, so we are very proud of that overall as a company. And definitely we focus on not only being a good power plant operator, but a safe operator that really serves the needs of our customers and that includes the stakeholders, the communities that we serve. We’d rather be a sustainable partner with all of the communities so we’ve done a lot of Cooperate Social Responsibility Projects, focusing primarily on education, safety; environmental, medical facilities and most recently some livelihood programs looking to enhance the long term employability of some residents nearby the projects.

 

Clearly we set the same expectations for of all our projects regardless of where they are at, whether the US, Asia or India, all of our projects are treated the same. We really try to set the same standards of environmental safety and stakeholders’ excellence, no matter at where we are.

 

Sure. We have been working closely with the Quang Ninh People’s Committee since last September 2014 when we executed the premium use of our understanding to develop the 1,240 MW BOT project, very similar to the existing Mong Duong II project. And most recently we’ve received approval from the Quang Ninh People’s Committee to build that project on land that they provided access to in the community of Dam Ha which is in Quang Ninh province as well. So we are planning to execute that project in that part.

 

Key activities are primarily taking place for working very closely with the government of Vietnam to insure that this new project is inserted and the upcoming update to the Power Master Plant number 7. It is very important that this project is included in the near term horizon, so that we can benefit from the lessons learnt from the execution of Mong Duong II project.

 

It’s also very important, since this project is located in Quang Ninh province, that we utilize the natural resources from the province. So being able to secure and get approval from MOIT and the government of Vietnam to use domestic Quang Ninh coal for a power plant in Quang Ninh province is the top priority for us and the government.

 

It was very pleasing to be asked to be a member of the Executive Board and we are proud to enter in this first round as a member of the Board. And we look forward to sharing our best practices during the implementation of the Mong Duong II project so that others can learn our sustainable practices that we employed on this project: environmental safety, and CSR programs in neighbouring communities. So we want to share that, plus we want to continue to expand our AES branch relationships beyond Quang Ninh province as we look to strengthen our branch, look at other opportunities, and develop in other cities of Vietnam. So we are excited about being a part of the Board and excited to have our team being a part of a sustainability initiative of Vietnam that we can support with our people moving forward throughout these years.

I believe from the current forecast that the economy will continue to grow strong; we expect that GDP growth will be strong in the coming years, and subsequently, with strong economic growth you also have a strong power growth, power demand growth which creates opportunity for companies like AES to come into Vietnam and continue to try to present proposals to the Government to fulfil the Government needs to meet the lack of power.

 

So we definitely plan to be engaged with the Vietnam Government to be a part of the economics and subsequent power demand growth in fulfil the need for the power for Vietnam. That’s our primary role as AES.