First Workshop of Vietnam's First Oil Refinery Operated

The management board of Vietnam's first oil refinery Dung Quat and its general contractor Technip February 9 pumped 90,000 tons of crude oil into the plant's first crude distillation unit (CDU) to facilitate its operation.

 

The CDU is capable of refining 148,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

 

From now until June this year, the board is expected to operate 14 remaining CDUs at 60 per cent of their designed capacities.

 

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. (Local sources)