News Room - Business/Economics

Posted on 10 Oct 2008

Vietnam to import crude for first refinery

      

           

Vietnam Oil & Gas Group is negotiating crude oil supply contracts with energy giants BP and Shell in preparation for the opening of the country’s first refinery.

 

The Vietnam group, known as PetroVietnam, said that the Dung Quat Oil Refinery would need around 3.5 million tons of crude oil per year once the facility goes on line in the central province of Quang Ngai.

 

The group expects to open the refinery by February next year. It said Dung Quat would need some 6.5 million tons of crude oil per year by 2010.

 

PetroVietnam had initially planned to use crude oil from Bach Ho, the country’s largest oil field, for the refinery.

 

But with high profits rolling in from Bach Ho crude oil exports, PetroVietnam said it intended to import about 30 percent of the crude oil that Dung Quat would need. Vietnam, Southeast Asia’s third-largest crude oil producer, still imports most of its oil products due to a lack of refineries.

 

Dung Quat Oil Refinery is expected to produce approximately three million tons of diesel and two million tons of fuel and other petrochemical products annually, meeting around 30 percent of domestic demand.