The state enterprise's deceptions
concerning the Yadana gas pipeline
shows that it is only concerned with
its own interests, not the nation's.
Pennapa Hongthong and James
Fahn report.
During the hearings held last week by
the national committee set up to
review the Yadana gas pipeline
project, chairman Anand
Panyarachun chastised one project
opponent for calling the Petroleum
Authority of Thailand (PTT) a liar,
claiming the accusations went
against a much-sought spirit of
compromise.
In the interests of decorum, therefore,
let it merely be said that the
deceptions, misleading statements
and bare-faced misrepresentations of
the PTT in support of its own agenda
keep piling up.
The latest revelation of the state oil
company's duplicity came in its
reaction to the news that the
Electricity Generating Authority of
Thailand (Egat) would be delayed in
completing the Ratchaburi power
plant, which will use the gas being
transported from Burma's Yadana
field.
The PTT has for years argued that
Thailand would lose face in the
international arena if the pipeline
was
not completed in time to start
receiving gas by July 1, 1998. More
to the point, the firm claimed it would
also lose a lot of money, as much as
Bt100 million per day: Bt40 million
per
day in fines paid to the Burmese gas
consortium and Bt60 million per day
to buy bunker oil as a replacement
fuel for the Ratchaburi power plant.
It used the fines written into the
contract it signed as a stick to beat
back the arguments of
conservationists, who had sought a
delay and review of the project to
lessen its impact on sensitive forests
along the border. However, despite
repeated demands, the PTT never
allowed the public to see the contract
itself.
Now we know why. After Egat
announced during the hearings that
the power plant would be delayed,
perhaps for several months, PTT
officials reported that it would not
lose that much money after all: the
Bt40 million it must pay to Burma
would go toward future gas
purchases. ''The only money we will
lose will be the interest,'' the PTT's
Jira Chomhimvet declared.
There was no comment on what loss
of face Thailand would suffer as a
result of Egat's delays, or of the need
for Egat and PTT officials to fly to
Rangoon and beg for lenience.
The implication is clear: the PTT
apparently believes that a delay
caused by Egat's construction woes
is more acceptable than a delay
aimed at trying to protect one of
Thailand's few remaining forests.
Earlier this year, news was also
leaked that the contract allows the
PTT an escape from its payments if
the project was halted by force
majeure, for instance by government
decree. The state enterprise,
however, maintains that a stoppage
carried out for environmental reasons
does not constitute sufficient cause.
To prove its point, if rather bizarrely,
the PTT actually insisted on paying
fines to its contractor when the
government temporarily suspended
work to give a legal committee a
chance to examine the contracts.
There are plenty of other instances
where the PTT has misled the public:
The PTT has often claimed that the
pipeline's entry point into Thailand
at
Ban I-Tong village in Kanchanaburi
was agreed upon by both Thai and
Burmese officials, implying that it
is
the best route for both sides. But at
the hearings last week, the state oil
company conceded that it was Burma
which insisted on selling the gas at
Ban I-Tong -- thus forcing the
pipeline to pass through Thailand's
Huay Khayeng forest, a 1A
watershed reserve -- or not selling
it
to Thailand at all.
The PTT claimed that it would take
special care when working in forest
areas, limiting the track to a width
of
12 metres instead of the normal 20
metres. But a video taken of the
logging in Huay Khayeng forest in
January, and presented by
Kanchanaburi conservationist Phinan
Chotirosseranee at the hearing last
week, showed that the operations
were carried out carelessly. As some
of the bigger trees were felled, they
carved out a wide swathe of damage,
knocking down other trees beyond
even the 20-metre limit. PTT and
Forest Industry Organisation officials
reportedly stood and watched it all
happen.
The PTT has claimed that once the
pipeline is laid underground, the
forest above it would be replanted
and returned to its natural state. But
at the hearing last week, it was
revealed that trees with deep roots
could not be allowed above the
pipeline, lest the roots damage the
pipe itself. Farmers growing crops
over the pipeline will only be allowed
to plant shallow-rooted crops like
bananas or sugar cane, according to
the PTT. Forest areas will also have
to be monitored and pruned, and so
will never be pristine.
The legal committee earlier this year
found that the PTT will not actually
receive the gas on July 1, 1998, but
rather on Aug 1. It wants to finish
the
pipeline by the earlier date in order
to
carry out tests.
The PTT's approach seems to be to
say whatever it thinks is necessary
in
support of the project, no matter how
economical it is with the truth. Faced
with questions over the pipeline's
safety and compensation handed out
by the firm, Piti Yimprasert, president
of the PTT's natural gas business,
stated bluntly that, ''the pipeline
is
100 per cent secure'' and ''the PTT
has the best compensation system in
the world''.
It is absurd to claim that any project
is
completely secure, much less a gas
pipeline running along an active fault
line and a civil war zone. If he had
simply stated what the threats were
and what had been done to counter
them, most observers would have
been satisfied. But Piti apparently
saw the TV cameras staring at him
and went into propaganda mode,
showing his contempt for the public's
intelligence in the process.
Piti's most telling statement, however,
was one that not many would quarrel
with. Explaining why the PTT hired a
consultant to carry out the pipeline's
environmental impact assessment
(EIA), he admitted that, ''the PTT is
not an expert in the environment''.
While it is of course perfectly
acceptable to hire an outside
company to do an EIA, like every
industrial firm, the PTT must work
harder to improve its environmental
expertise. Its reforestation campaign
is commendable, but protecting the
environment is not just a matter of
planting trees or donating money to
fix problems. It must raise awareness
about environmental effects at every
level of its operations in order to
minimise problems in the first place.
Looking at the whole pipeline debate,
the conservationists have also made
errors in judgement, for instance, by
starting their protests too late. Phinan
admitted she had thought the pipeline
was going through Ratchaburi,
suggesting that the Kanchanaburi
opponents were largely concerned
with protecting ''their own backyard''.
But unlike the PTT, these opponents
were not using millions of baht in
state funds to carry out their public
relations campaign. Following the
pipeline debacle, the government
must privatise the state enterprise
in
a fair and transparent manner so that
it can no longer suckle on the public's
teats. In short, the PTT can no longer
be allowed to pretend that it is acting
in the national interest when in fact
it
is only acting in its own.