Viet Nam to build third oil refinery plant in Vung Tau

The plant is set to be built in the southern province of Vung Tau with a designed capacity of 10 million m3 per annum.

The Government tasked the Viet Nam Oil and Gas Group to draft the investment project and investment procedures are expected to be completed by this October, Le added.

Le emphasized the need to further increase crude exploitation capacity as the currently exploited crude oil only meets 50 percent of the raw materials for domestic petroleum production.

Viet Nam put into operation the first oil refinery plant in 2009 and the second in 2018 but both plants only meet around 70 percent of domestic demand.

The Nghi Son plant, the largest at present that supplies one third of the country's demand, has cut production output to 80 percent or even to 55 percent at some point due to financial problems.

The cutting has led to a shortfall of petrol, forcing key petroleum businesses to increase imports to stabilize the domestic market, while oil prices skyrocketed in the global market recently.

Retail petrol prices hit all-time highs of VND29,824/liter for RON95-III and VND28,985/liter for E5RON92 after the government raised domestic petrol prices by an additional VND3,000/litre on March 11./.