BANGKOK (AFP) - The Thai government will take another three months to decide whether to build a key pipeline from a gas field being developed with Malaysia to southern Thailand, a government spokesman said today.

The delay was announced to Thai media after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra went to the region to listen to 3,000 angry opponents of the pipeline and later met 100 leading supporters of the project.

The opponents, fishermen and villagers in the Jana district of the southern province of Songkhla, met Thaksin late yesterday and promised stiff opposition if he approved the pipeline from the Gulf of Thailand.

Supporters have said the pipeline from the gas field, which is due to come on stream this year, would provide hundreds of badly needed jobs.

Government spokesman Yongyuth Tiyapairath said all opinions will be considered but no decision would be made immediately.

"It will take three months to know whether this project stays or goes. The government and other authorities will take more time on the issues we have got from both sides who are directly affected," the spokesman added.

Thaksin said on a Thai radio programme earlier today that he believed opponents had "unclear information" about the pipeline but he promised a quick decision.

US$1 billion project

Thailand and Malaysia are expected to start pumping natural gas from a seabed site along their border in mid-2002.

Under the current contested plan, the gas will come ashore at Songkhla and then be sent by pipeline to both countries. The first stage of the gas field is expected to cost US$1 billion. Officials say there could be 25 years of gas in the reserve.

But Thai environmental groups have said it will destroy fishing grounds and cause other ecological damage.

There have been stormy public meetings over the pipeline in Songkhla. At one in October 2000, hundreds of people stormed the meeting and clashed with police, leaving more than 30 people injured.

The original contract was signed by state-run oil company Petroleum Authority of Thailand and Malaysian oil firm Petronas.