BANGKOK, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Thailand's leading constructionfirm Italian-Thai Development PCL said on Friday it wasin talks with Myanmar authorities to build a $500 millionliquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Dawei industrialzone in southern Myanmar.
The LNG plan is part of $1.7 billion deal to develop thefirst phase of the long-delayed Dawei project, which includes a$500 million, 450-megawatt gas-fired power plant, the company'spresident Premchai Karnasuta told a news conference.
Dawei is arguably Southeast Asia's most ambitious industrialzone - a 250-sq-km (100-sq-mile) deep-sea port, petrochemicaland heavy industry hub along the slim Thai-Myanmar peninsula.
The World Bank and its private sector investment arm, theInternational Finance Corporation, will provide loans for theLNG terminal, which will have annual capacity of 6 milliontonnes, Premchai said.
"We can start building the LNG terminal after we receive anapproval on environment impact assessment," he said, addingThailand's largest energy firm PTT and a unit of Royal Dutch Shell will be two main customers.
They will each have capacity to import 3 million tonnes peryear of LNG through the terminal, he said.
On Wednesday, Italian-Thai and its partners including RojanaIndustrial Park PCL signed concession agreements withDawei Special Economic Zone management committee to develop theinitial phase of the project.
The project's first phase is set to include a 27-square-kmindustrial estate and will begin with the construction of a138-km (86 mile) road from Dawei to Thailand's Kanchanaburiprovince, 119 km northwest of Bangkok.
Italian-Thai also received the right to develop anadditional 8 sq km of industrial land areas and the companyaimed to sell about 20 percent of land ares by 2016, whichshould create revenue of 10 billion baht ($284 million),Premchai said.
Premchai said Italian-Thai revenue is expected to reach70-80 billion baht in 2016 when it begins booking revenue fromthe Dawei project.
Italian-Thai has construction jobs on hands of about 300billion baht, which the company will gradually book for revenueover the next three years, he said. ($1 = 35.1600 baht) (Reporting by Manunphattr Dhanananphorn; Writing by KhettiyaJittapong; Editing by Simon Webb and)
