A man has his motorbike refilled at a gas station (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Petrol imports this year should be sharplyreduced as the Nghi Son Refinery comes into operation and the output of Dung QuatRefinery meets most of the local demand, said Deputy Minister of Industry andTrade Do Thang Hai.
The Deputy Minister also said the import of crude oil in 2019 and followingyears would be increased to serve refineries.
The output of the two refineries will meet up to 90 percent of the domesticmarket demand, gradually reducing the country’s reliance on imported petrol.
On December 23, 2018, Nghi Son Refinery officially came into full operation.The project has the largest scale and investment – 9 billion USD – of arefinery in Vietnam so far. The first phase of the project supplies 200,000barrels of oil per day following five years of construction.
The ministry said the refinery has provided around five million tonnes of oilsince June 2018. It produces RON 92, RON 95 petrol and diesel.
Once the refinery operates at 100 percent of its designed capacity, it willsupply 10 million tonnes of oil per year, meeting 40 percent of the country’sfuel demands and providing 17 percent of exports.
The Deputy Minister said that last year Vietnam imported around eight billiontonnes of petrol. Statistics from the General Department of Customs showedMalaysia was the biggest source of petrol for Vietnam with 3.12 million tonnesworth 1.97 billion USD, accounting for 29 percent of the import volume.
The petrol import price surged by 34.5 percent in 2018 to reach an average of 633.2USD per tonne. In November alone, the country imported 255,507 tonnes of petrolwith a value of 160.5 million USD, posting 19.4 percent and 5.5 percentincreases in terms of quantity and turnover, respectively.
The Republic of Korea, Singapore, China and Thailand were also big petrolexporters to Vietnam. — VNS/VNA
VNA
