The project is promoted by the Vietnam Coal and Minerals Group (Vinacomin), a large state-owned conglomerate.  Vinacomin believes there is 20 times more coal in the Red River basin than remains unexploited in Quang Ninh, Vietnam’s current coal kingdom. Up to 90 percent of the coal is in coastal Thai Binh province, underlying a rich rice-growing area; the rest is in Hung Yen, nearer the capital.

This project has seized the public’s attention and prompted wide debate on its feasibility and its impact on the environment and the country’s food security. The assessment process, is thus very important.

Talking about the interministerial assessment council meeting, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Le Duong Quang said the Vinacomin report was regarded as “valuable,” and an important basis for developing this coal basin.

The Inter-ministerial Assessment Council formed to review Vinacomin’s proposal includes representatives from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. There are three subgroups on geological assessment, technological and environmental assessment, and economy and policy. To ensure objective assessment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade invited the Union of Vietnamese Scientific and Technological Associations, the University of Mining and Geology and some independent scientists to work as advisors for the assessment council.

He said the assessment council will recommend Government approval for Vinacomin to proceed with plans to mine coal in the Red River Delta beginning in the 2020’s, and in the interim to test and evaluate two alternative coal mining technologies (underground mining and underground gasification). Quang said the interministerial council agreed the plan should be ‘strongly pushed.’

Vinacomin plans to test the technologies simultaneously at various depths. The first test project will begin in 2010 in Khoai Chau, Hung Yen at a cost of USD 6.5 million.

According to Nguyen Thanh Son, Director of Red River Energy Company, a unit of Vinacomin, preventing subsidence (the sinking of land above and near to mined areas) is the biggest problem. Son is confident that all problems associated with this scheme can be solved. If subsidence cannot be controlled, he said, the project will be scrapped.