CompanyGraph
Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited
GULF · Thailand
Burns imported gas and captures Thai sunlight and wind to sell electricity to Thailand's national grid under long-term fixed contracts.
Gulf Energy Development builds gas and solar power plants in Thailand and sells every kilowatt they produce to a single buyer, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, under contracts that last up to 25 years and pay the company whether or not the plant is actually running. When EGAT does call on the gas-fired plants, the order in which it does so depends on how cheaply each plant can produce power at that moment, and because the gas arrives as LNG through a single regasification terminal at Map Ta Phut, whatever the spot price is at that port directly determines where Gulf's plants sit in the dispatch queue — a high LNG price means the plants run less, and the portion of revenue that depends on running shrinks even though the fixed capacity payment continues. The company has assembled contracts covering both gas and renewable generation, a combination that took several separate approval cycles from Thailand's Energy Regulatory Commission to put together and cannot simply be copied, since Thailand's national power plans open and close the available slots by technology type on multi-year schedules. The whole structure rests on EGAT remaining financially sound enough to honour two decades of payment obligations — if political pressure forces EGAT to suppress electricity tariffs and its finances weaken, every contract in the portfolio is affected at once, because there is no other buyer on the grid to route power toward.
How does this company make money?
Revenue comes in two streams under each power purchase agreement with EGAT. The first is a capacity payment — a fixed amount EGAT pays simply for having the plant ready to generate, whether or not it actually runs. The second is an energy payment — a variable amount paid only for electricity actually delivered, and the size of that payment shifts with fuel costs because the contracts include a mechanism that passes some of the LNG price movement through to EGAT. The capacity payment provides a steady baseline of cash; the energy payment goes up or down depending on how often EGAT calls the plant and what LNG costs at the time.
What makes this company hard to replace?
EGAT is bound by power purchase agreements that run for 20 to 25 years — walking away from them would trigger significant financial penalties and leave Thailand short of generation capacity it has already committed to in national plans. On the other side, any company hoping to replace this supplier would need to secure its own LNG supply contracts and pipeline access rights, both of which take multiple years to arrange. The contracts, the fuel logistics, and the regulatory approval cycles all create barriers that make switching slow and expensive for every party involved.
What limits this company?
Map Ta Phut has a fixed number of deepwater berths where LNG tankers can unload, and environmental rules block new terminal construction on any quick timeline. During high-demand periods, this means the gas plants cannot always run at full capacity because the fuel simply cannot be delivered fast enough — the port is the ceiling, not the turbines.
What does this company depend on?
The company cannot operate without LNG shipped from Qatar and Australia through Map Ta Phut industrial port. It needs power purchase agreements with EGAT to have any legal right to sell electricity at all. Its plants connect to consumers only through Thailand's national grid transmission infrastructure. The gas turbines require specialised maintenance expertise that is not widely available. And continued operation depends on regulatory licences from Thailand's Energy Regulatory Commission.
Who depends on this company?
EGAT relies on this company's gas plants to fill in during peak demand when solar and wind output drops — without them, EGAT would need to fire up more expensive backup plants or buy power from abroad, raising costs across the system. Industrial businesses in the Eastern Economic Corridor, a major manufacturing zone in Thailand, would face higher electricity bills if they had to fall back on pricier alternative generation sources.
How does this company scale?
Adding capacity means building more plants that run through the same process — LNG in, electricity out, sold to EGAT — and signing additional contracts under the same framework, which is straightforward to replicate site by site. What does not scale as easily is the fuel supply chain: Map Ta Phut's limited deepwater berth space and the difficulty of winning environmental permits for new import terminals mean that gas delivery infrastructure cannot keep pace with plant expansion, so the port remains the hard constraint no matter how many turbines are built.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
Global natural gas markets set the Asian spot LNG price, which directly affects what the company pays for fuel even when it has long-term supply contracts in place. Thai government mandates are pushing for more solar and wind generation across the country, which over time will eat into the hours that gas plants are called upon to run. Emerging ASEAN carbon pricing schemes could place additional costs on fossil fuel generation, squeezing the economics of the gas-fired fleet further.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
Every payment the company receives — for gas plants and solar and wind alike — flows from one counterparty: EGAT. If the Thai government pressures EGAT to keep electricity tariffs artificially low, or if wider fiscal stress weakens EGAT's finances, EGAT could struggle to honour the capacity payments that the company counts on even when its plants are not running. There is no other buyer on the grid the company could sell to instead — the transmission lines run to EGAT and nowhere else.