BANGKOK - Thailand's premier today reassured the chief of Malaysia's national energy firm Petronas that local protests would not interfere with the completion of a gas pipeline linking Thailand and Malaysia with an offshore field.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters he had given his reassurance to Petronas president Mohammad Hassan Marican during a courtesy call at Government House that the project would be completed by 2005.

Petronas and Thai energy giant PTT are equal partners in Trans Thai Malaysia Co (TTM), the operator of the long-delayed and controversial pipeline project.

"The project has already started and I believe that it will be complete by 2005," Thaksin told reporters.

Under the scheme, originally due to begin operations in 2002 at a cost of RM3.8 billion, the gas would come ashore at Songkhla province in southern Thailand and be distributed by pipeline to both countries.

The offshore rig is in place and pipes have been laid from the gas field towards the coast, but the new infrastructure still awaits a link to the mainland.

Ecological damage

A spokeswoman from TTM told AFP that the pipeline to the shore will take o­ne and a half years to build, while a gas separation plant o­n the Thai side will take two years.

The two companies will start construction in the third quarter of this year and will finish the project by July 2005, she added.

Thailand's government has repeatedly vowed to override the concerns of residents and environmentalists who say the project will cause grave ecological damage.

Last December, 2,000 villagers clashed with Thai police, injuring dozens, ahead of a joint cabinet meeting between leaders of the two countries.

At the time, a Malaysian government official said Petronas was losing RM1 million ringgit a day due to the delays.

Thaksin also said he had assured Marican that the government had put appropriate security in place for the construction of the project.

"On the security for construction, the government has assigned security-related agencies to oversee it, as well as to clear up any misunderstandings with locals," he said. - AFP