The development of Natural Gas-fired plants in the Phu My complex of the Ba Ria-Vung Tau province has helped to offset Vietnams heavy reliance on hydropower, which can be vulnerable to disruption when monsoon rainfall is unusually low. In March 2003, the 720-MW Phu My 3 power plant commenced operations. The $450 million plant, owned by a consortium led by UKs BP, was Vietnams first foreign-invested, build-operate-transfer (BOT) project. EVN has contracted to purchase the output under a 20-year power purchase agreement. Mitsubishi received an award in February 2006 for the construction of a 330-MW natural gas-fired power plant in the southern Mekong delta. The plant will come online in early 2009, running initially on fuel Oil, and switching to natural gas when Pipeline infrastructure is completed. More foreign companies are beginning to enter the growing Vietnamese power market in the form of Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) projects. EVN and a consortium including Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), Sumitomo, and ElÉctricitÉ de France (EdF) began BOT construction of the Mekong Deltas 715-MW Phu My 2-2 in January 2003. The plant is fueled by gas from Nam Con Son Basin. EVN plans to develop a national electricity grid by 2020 by patching together several regional grids. The countrys distribution infrastructure is poorly maintained, but has benefited from recent improvements. A North-South power cable transmits electricity from Vietnams largest generator, the Hoa Binh hydropower plant in the North, to large population centers in the South, linking the country into one electricity grid and helping alleviate electricity shortages in Ho Chi Minh City. The $56 million project was funded by the World Bank.  Vietnam is considering the construction of a 500-KV, 188-mile power line from Pleiku to Danang city at a cost of $130 million. The Vietnamese government has estimated that an additional 9,300 miles of high voltage transmission lines and 173,600 miles of medium and low voltage transmission lines will be necessary to accommodate new capacity by 2010. In September 2004, EVN announced plans to invest $330 million over five years to upgrade transmission lines surrounding Hanoi. Vietnam plans to complete its first nuclear power plant by 2020 as an alternate means on meeting demand. In December 2004, the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology submitted a pre-feasibility study for the 2,000-MW nuclear plant to the National Assembly.