Vietnam to Operate First Oil Refinery Feb 21 This Year

Vietnam will operate its first oil refinery Dung Quat February 21, four days ahead of initial schedule, state media reported citing the plant’s management board.

 

As part of preparations for the operation, the board February 2 received 80,000 tons of crude oil for the second time from the single-point mooring system (SPM) at Viet Thanh bay, central Quang Ngai province.

 

The board also pumped diesel oil into crude distillation units (CDU) for trial test and refinement February 19.

 

The oil refinery is scheduled to run at 60 per cent-65 per cent of the designed capacity from February to June, at 70 per cent in June-August, and at full capacity as from late August. It is expected to refine 3.5 million tons of crude oil into 2.7 million tons of products during this year.

 

The US$2.5-billion plant is designed to refine 6.5 million tons of crude oil annually into 6.3 million tons of products including 150,000 tons of propylene; 300,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG); 1.9 million tons of gasoline of different types (A90, A92, A95); 400,000 tons of fuel for jet engines and petroleum for aircrafts (Jet A1); 3 million tons of diesel oil (FO); and 360,000 tons of fuel oil (FO) which are expected to meet 30 per cent of local demand as from 2010.

 

Vietnam spent US$244 million on importing 750,000 metric tons of petroleum products in January this year, due to the lack of major oil refineries. (Labor, News, Youth)