Vietnam’s state-owned oil and gas corporation PetroVietnam plans to build a $125 million petrochemical plant next to its Dung Quat refinery which is currently under construction. Construction plans for the petrochemical plant – capable of producing 150,000 metric tons a year of polypropylene – have been submitted to the government for approval. Plans to build the petrochemical plant were included in the initial development plans for the Dung Quat refinery complex but were shelved until all necessary funding for Dung Quat was secured. The refinery, currently under construction by Vietross, Wednesday signed a loan agreement with the Vietnam Bank for Foreign Trade to borrow $250 million. The agreement completes the fund raising exercise for the refinery. Vietross is a 50-50 joint venture between PetroVietnam and Russia ‘s Zarubezneheft. PetroVietnam and Zarubezneheft will ask the governments of Vietnam and Russia to share the cost of building the new petrochemical plant. The $1.3 billion Dung Quat project, which is currently under construction in Vietnam’s central Quang Ngai province, will be Vietnam’s first oil refinery. It will have processing capacity of 130,000 barrels a day, or 6.5 million tons a year of crude oil. The refinery will produce three main products: liquid petroleum gas, aircraft petroleum and unleaded gasoline. Propylene is a major byproduct.
Vietnam currently has no petrochemical plant capable of producing polypropylene, which is a major component of plastic and some synthetic fabrics, as well as other chemical products. Government figures show the country imported 726,000 tons of plastics worth $ 487 million last year, up 12% in volume and 1.4% in value from 2000.
