1:32:30 PM | 14/10/2008
Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has recently urged relevant authorities in northern central Thanh Hoa province and the state-owned oil monopoly PetroVietnam to accelerate works on US$6-billion Nghi Son petrochemical-refinery complex in an effort to start construction in June of 2010, the New Hanoi newspaper reported.
Speedier implementation of such a large petrochemical-refinery project is expected to help the petroleum-importing country take advantages of soaring global petrol demand and curb national trade deficit, Hai said.
PetroVietnam holds a 25.1 per cent stake in the project while Idenmitsu of Japan and Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) own 35.1 per cent each, and Mitsui Chemical Inc of Japan 4.7 per cent.
To be equipped with the most modern technology, the complex is expected to refine 200,000 barrels of oil per day or 10 million tons per annum, a 1.5-fold increase against Vietnam’s first oil refinery Dung Quat’s capacity, when operational in late 2012 for the first phase. The capacity will be raised to 20 million tons per year in the second phase.
The facility that will use crude oil imported from Kuwait is designed to produce 2.1 million tons of gasoline- 92, 95 and 98-octane grades - 2.67 million tons of diesel, 790,000 tons of kerosene and jet fuel as well as 500,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) annually.
Vietnam has no major oil refineries, and it now has to import almost of petroleum products. The country spent US$9.75 billion importing 10.47 million metric tons of petroleum products in the first nine months of this year, up 82.9 per cent on year and 10.2 per cent, respectively. (New Hanoi, VNS)
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