State-owned oil monopoly PetroVietnam and partners including KPI of Kuwait and Idemitsu of Japan are speeding up preparations to submit to the government for approval a project to build Thanh Hoa province-based Nghi Son petrochemical complex in April, a company official said.
If approved, a joint venture will be set up in the second quarter of this year to carry out the project, he attributed.
The related sides have clinched deals on the joint venture, crude oil supply, and product sales, said the PetroVietnam official, elaborating that the Vietnamese government has approved incentive polices for the project.
The last round on the project has been ongoing from February 15 to 26 in Hanoi, he noted.
PetroVietnam wants to build a US$5 billion refinery on a 325-hectare area of Nghi Son economic zone in Thanh Hoa province, 180km south of Hanoi, with an annual processing capacity of 7 million metric tons, or 150,000 barrels a day, said the official, who declined to be named.
But Idemitsu is proposing to build a refinery of 8.5 million tons capacity at a value of more than US$6 billion, he said, giving no details about ownership stakes.
PetroVietnam plans to import all the crude oil for the Nghi Son refinery, which it plans to begin operating from 2013, he added.
Vietnam now has no oil refinery, and the first US$2.5-billion Dung Quat is underway in central Quang Ngai province, which is expected to process 6.5 million tons of crude oil a year when fully operational in February 2009. (Vietnam & World Economy
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