The project, covering anarea of over 15 hectares on the land housing Phu My Fertiliser Plant atPhu My 1 Industrial Zone in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, consistsof two parts: revamping the NH3 Unit and build Phu My NPK Plant.
Thecomplex project has a total investment capital of nearly 5 trillionVND, some 37 million USD, 70 percent of which will be financed by bankloans and another 30 percent by the owner's equity.
Aftercompletion, the upgrading of the NH3 Unit will increase the currentammonia output at Phu My Fertilizer Plant by 90,000 tonnes per year,from the current 450,000 tonnes per year to 540,000 tonnes. Plans callfor adopting Denmark's Haldor Topsoe A/S technology.
The EPC(Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning) contractorsinclude Italy's Technip Group, previously the contractor for Phu MyFertiliser Plant, and PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation(PTSC). The products from the plant will be used as direct feedstock forPhu My NPK Plant, as well as to supply the domestic market, which stillsuffers from a shortage of NH3.
Meanwhile, the projected Phu MyNPK Plant, with a manufacturing capacity of 250,000 tonnes per year,will put in place Spain's Incro SA chemical technology, the mostadvanced technology in the world, to manufacture high-quality NPKfertiliser, which will guarantee all necessary nutrients for crops atdifferent growth periods and under different soil conditions.
Thecontractor consortium for the complex is Germany's ThyssenKruppIndustrial Solutions and PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation.
Accordingto the Ministry of Industry and Trade, demand for NPK fertiliserincreased from 2.1 million tonnes in 2005 to some 4 million tonnes in2014, with an annual average growth of 7 percent. Yet, domesticproduction can currently only meet 5 to 10 percent of high quality NPK.
"Totalcapital investment of the complex project is not large, in comparisonwith other oil and gas projects, but it has great importance to thenational economy that helps ensure the country's agricultural sector,"PetroVietnam's chairman, Nguyen Xuan Son, said during the signingceremony.
Son noted that Vietnam was still importing around300,000 tonnes of high-quality NPK fertiliser per year, and the outputfrom Phu My NPK Plant were expected to replace most of the currentlyimported NPK fertiliser.
The complex will be brought into operation during the second quarter of 2017.-VNA