Southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province has recently granted an investment license to a Vietnam-Thailand joint venture to build a petrochemical complex with a total investment of US$3.77 billion, the Investment newspaper reported, citing the provincial documents.
The joint venture so-called Long Son Petrochemical Limited Company was set up by state-owned oil monopoly PetroVietnam group, the Vietnam National Chemical Corporation (Vinachem), and two subsidiaries of Thai Siam Cement Group (SCG), Vina SCG Chemicals Co Ltd and Thai Plastic and Chemicals Public Co Ltd.
The complex will be built on a 400-hectare area in Long Son petroleum industrial park in Long Son commune, Vung Tau city, adjacent to Vietnam&rsquos planned third oil refinery Long Son.
Kan Trakulhoon, president and CEO of SCG, said that his subsidiaries hold a 71 per cent stake in the joint venture while Vietnamese firms own the remainder.
The complex will include an international-scale facility producing olefins with an annual designed capacity of 1 65 million tons one producing polyolefins, 145 million tons one processing Chlor-alkali, 280,000 tons and one processing raw materials for Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) plastics, 330,000 tons of EDC and 400,000 tons of VCM.
It will also contain necessary infrastructure such as a port, storage facilities and utilities.
Construction and operation of the complex will be divided into two phases, with the PVC-related plants likely to operating in 2012 and the other plants in 2013.
The petrochemical complex together with the Long Son oil refinery costing at least US$6 billion is under the US$10 billion Long Son oil refining-petrochemical project.
Without major oil refineries, Vietnam now has to import almost of petroleum products. The country spent US$5.92 billion importing 6.81 million metric tons of petroleum products in the first six months of this year, up 68.9 per cent on year and 4.4 per cent, respectively.
The first oil refinery Dung Quat, which is under construction in central Quang Ngai province, is expected to start operation in next February to process 6.5 million tons of crude oil a year and meet more than 33 per cent of the domestic demand. (Investment)
Vietnamese
