Dung Quat Oil Refinery Project to Get US$1Bln This Week
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has just instructed the Ministry of Finance to provide US$1 billion of soft loans to the country’s first oil refinery project at Dung Quat in central Quang Ngai province by the end of this week.
The urgent disbursement of the investment capital for the project is aimed to keep the construction pace of this facility on schedule, a Ministry of Finance official said.
The government has also asked the Ministries of Finance, and Planning and Investment to prepare US$800 million of the State budget for the project. Meanwhile, the State Bank of Vietnam will urge the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) and other domestic commercial banks to lend US$250 million and US$225 million, respectively, to the project.
After eight years of delay, on November 28 this year the construction of the Dung Quat oil refinery was kicked off by a consortium, comprising of France’s Technip, Malaysia’s Technip Geoproduction, Japan’s JGC and Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas.
The 800-ha oil refinery is now estimated to cost around US$2.5 billion compared to initial calculations of just US$1.3 billion.
The refinery is scheduled to be operational in 2009 and will process 6.5 million metric tons of crude oil a year for high-grade gasoline, jet fuel, liquefied petroleum gas, kerosene, diesel oil for engines, diesel oil for industrial use, fuel oil, and propylene. It is expected to meet 40 per cent of Vietnam’s petroleum demand at this time.
Currently, Vietnam has to import most of petroleum products to feed its energy demand, as it has no major refining facilities.
Vietnam Economic Times
Vietnamese
