Myanmar to hire three 120MW gas turbines from Japan

Myanmar will hire three 120MW gas turbines from Japan and buy a dozen heavy-duty generators from the United States and Singapore shortly, to ease the country 's power shortage, according to a report. The agreement was signed on the sidelines of an international conference on future of Asia held in Tokyo during the second half of May.

In the wake of a week-long peaceful demonstration against power blackout staged in the country since May 20, the authorities have taken some urgent measures to ease power crisis by ordering 12 heavy-duty generators of 300 to 500 KVA and two gas turbines respectively from the United States' Caterpillar Co. and General Electric Co, as well as from Singapore.

According to the Ministry of Electric Power-2, due to an increase in number of electric power users and state-owned and private factories and workshops, the demand had recently hit 1,890 MW against the actual supply of 1,500 MW. The mine-destroyed Ruili-Mansan power grid towers are also under urgent repair for resumption of electricity supply which is expected to be complete by the end of May or early June.