Foreign Firms to Build Oil Refinery in Central Vietnam

Foreign firms to build oil refinery in central Vietnam

HANOI, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) — Vietnam’s central Phu Yen has licensed UK’s Techno Star Management and Russia’s Telloil to buildan oil refinery with annual capacity of 4 million tons of petroleum products, local newspaper Young People reported on Tuesday.

Capitalized at more than 27,480 billion Vietnamese dong (1.7 billion U.S. dollars), the refinery named Vung Ro in Dong Hoa district will annually turn out a total of 4 million tons of petroleum, jet fuel, diesel, benzene, liquefied petroleum gas, andsulfur.

Phu Yen licensed the Vung Ro project on Nov. 18 after receivinga recent in-principle prime ministerial approval. An official fromthe provincial Planning and Investment Department said if construction proceeds on schedule, the Vung Ro oil refinery shouldbecome operational in 2012 when Vietnam’s annual demand for petroleum products is estimated to surge to 20 million tons from 12.5 million tons in 2006.

To meet rising domestic demand, the state-run Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) is working on three oil refineries – two in central Thanh Hoa and Quang Ngai provinces, and one in southern Ba Ria Vung Tau province with a combined production output of some 20 million tons per annum.

Vietnam imported nearly 10.4 million tons of petroleum productsworth over 5.8 billion dollars in the first 10 months of this year,posting year-on-year rises of 12.1 percent and 16 percent, respectively, according to the General Statistics Office.

Meanwhile, it exported over 12.4 million tons of crude oil totaling nearly 6.6 billion dollars, down 9.9 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively.

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