Vietnam Starts Building Northern Biggest LPG Base Depot

Minh Quang Investment Limited Company February 25 kicked off construction of a liquefied petroleum gas store in northern Haiphong port city with a storage capacity of 10,000 tons.

The store built in local Dinh Vu industrial zone will be the biggest LPG base depot in northern , an official familiar to this deal said.

The 2.28-hectare, six-basin facility is estimated to cost a total of VND400 billion (US$25 million), he elaborated.

The store will be capable of containing 3,000 tons in October for the first phase. Its capacity will be scaled up gradually in the second phase starting from January of 2009 and in the third phase from December of 2011.

The depot will be equipped with modern and advanced technology and machineries imported from and .

The underway facility is under the master plan on petroleum store and port system approved by state-owned oil monopoly PetroVietnam group for the 2006-2010 period, including LPG depots in Haiphong, Ha Tinh and Danang City .

now has to import most of petroleum products to fuel its fast-growing economy due to the absence of oil refineries. In the first month of this year, the country is estimated to spend US$716.3 million importing one million metric tons of the products, up 61.1 per cent on year in value and 8.6 per cent in volume. ( Economic Times, VNA)