HANOI, Mar 6 BP and its partners plan to invest $ 2 billion to build a pipeline off Vietn

HANOI, Mar 6 (Reuters) BP and its partners plan to invest $2 billion to build a pipeline off Vietnam's south coast to deliver gas to power plants onshore from two new gas fields, Moc Tinh and Hai Thach, the oil major said on Tuesday.

''The pipeline will enable us to supply more natural gas to power plants,'' a spokeswoman for the company said in Hanoi on Tuesday.

She declined to name the other partners in the project.

''Negotiation is likely to last for sometime, so we do not have a time frame for the project at this moment.'' BP is the operator of Vietnam's only operational pipeline, Nam Con Son, built at a cost of $1.3 billion and sends about 13.2 million cubic metres of gas a day from the offshore Lan Tay-Lan Do gas field.

The spokeswoman said gas reserves at Moc Tinh and Hai Thanh fields adjacent to Lan Tay-Lan Do are significant and could be higher than in Lan Tay-Lan Do, which hold combined reserves of 2 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Last week BP said it planned to raise average gas deliveries to power plants in Vietnam's southern region by nearly 14 percent to 15 million cubic metres per day by the end of this year to meet surging demand from power plants in the industrial hub.

Hydropower plants produce 40 percent of Vietnam's electricity.

Another 40 percent is generated by gas-fired plants and the remainder from coal-fired plants.

Hanoi plans to build 60 new plants by 2020 to meet surging consumption, and more than double gas-fired power generation capacity to 7,000 megawatts by 2010 from 3,000 megawatts now to reduce reliance on hydro and coal-fired power plants.

REUTERS CS PM1502