Minister Anticipates Resistance to Change
Oct. 20--Dealing with expected oil price increases and resistance from labour groups will hamper new Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand's ability to overhaul the country's energy policy during his one-year term, he said in an interview."Oil price rises will consume a lot of my time," he said. "I feel the declining oil prices have hit the bottom because Opec intends to reduce its production quota to raise the prices, so the prices may turn around again."
Dr Piyasvasti insisted that the government would no longer subsidise local oil prices. If necessary, he said, price intervention by the state Oil Fund was a better option.
During the next year, Dr Piyasvasti said he was determined to prepare the groundwork for long-term fundamental changes in the energy industry. These include implementing clear Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) policies and regulations applied in the bidding of independent power-producer (IPP) projects, as well as enacting necessary energy-related laws.
Regarding IPP bidding, Dr Piyasvasti disagreed with the deposed government's proposal to allocate 50 percent of new electricity capacity after 2010 to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat). He said Egat should be guaranteed only 15 percent of new capacity as the state-run electricity firm was responsible for maintaining a minimum of 15 percent reserves for peak power demand.
"Why does it have to be 50 percent when Egat clearly mentioned in its prospectus for listing that the 50 percent exclusive rights for new capacity was set to attract investors?" Dr Piyasvasti asked rhetorically.
"Now that Egat's listing process is given up, the 50 percent new capacity requirement should not be an excuse."
Egat's labour union earlier demanded that the Energy Ministry keep its policy allowing Egat to produce 50 percent of the new electricity capacity after 2010.
Dr Piyasvasti said resistance from some groups against his policies could impede him from achieving this goal within the one-year timeframe.
His expectations proved true when the Energy Ministry decided to postpone indefinitely its plan to phase out octane 95 gasoline from Jan 1 mainly due to the protests from motorists whose cars were not compatible with gasohol.
According to Dr Piyasvasti, it was unfair to ban premium petrol when about 500,000 cars cannot use gasohol.
"It's unnecessary to phase out premium petrol despite the fact that we are promoting alternative fuel," he said. "However, we would realise our success if one day octane 95 gasoline accounted for only 2 percent of overall fuel consumption in Thailand."
Market mechanisms would enhance the popularity of gasohol as the alternative fuel was subsidised, making it cost less than premium petrol, Dr Piyasvasti said.
The new minister said he would not adopt any index to judge his performance over the one year-term.
"Such an index is just useless," he said. "I'm the only member of this cabinet who graduated in econometrics, so I know well how to manipulate such an index to look good or bad," he said.