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Billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi's Gulf Development, Partner Greenlight $1.8 Billion LNG Project
A natural gas facility operated by Gulf Development in Thailand.
A joint venture led by Gulf Development—an energy-to-telecommunications conglomerate controlled by billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi—will invest up to 60 billion baht ($1.8 billion) to develop a liquefied natural gas terminal and regasification facility at the Map Ta Phut industrial port in eastern Thailand.
Shareholders of Gulf MTP LNG Terminal (GMTP)—which is 70% held by Gulf Development and 30% by PTT Tank Terminal, a unit of Thailand's state-owned energy company PTT—on Tuesday gave the greenlight for the project to proceed.. Construction is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of this year and commercial operations are expected to commence in the first quarter of 2029, Bangkok-listed Gulf Development said in a filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand.
The project, which will be financed through long-term borrowings and equity contributions from the partners, is part of the Map Ta Phut industrial port development. GMTP has a 35-year contract with the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand to develop and operate the facility, which will be built across 32 hectares of reclaimed land within the industrial port.
The terminal, which will be Thailand's third LNG facility, will have an annual capacity of 8 million tons in the first phase. 'It will enhance Thailand's LNG import capacity to meet the growing energy demand in the industrial and power generation sectors, in line with the country's economic growth,' Gulf said. 'Additionally, it will support the use of natural gas as fuel for power generation at the group's gas-fired power plants in the future.'
Founded by Sarath in 2007, Gulf has been diversifying in recent years and has become one of Thailand's largest conglomerates with interests in data centers, telecommunications, and digital infrastructures. Earlier this month, the company won a virtual bank licence. Last year, it partnered with Alphabet's Google to build AI-powered cloud facilities in Thailand and started a crypto currency exchange with billionaire Chanpeng Zhao's Binance.
With a real-time net worth of $11.5 billion, Sarath is among the wealthiest in Thailand. Bulk of his fortune comes from his stake in Gulf, which has a market capitalization of about $19 billion.
