Vietnam exported 798,745 mt of crude oil in October, up 26.4% year-on-year, the General Department of Vietnam Customs said Tuesday.

The export volumes were down 13.7% from September.

The month-on month drop in the country's crude oil exports was attributed to stable demand for domestic crude from its sole 6.5 million mt/year refinery at Dung Quat. State-owned PetroVietnam did not import any crude for the refinery in October.

Around 90% of the refinery's input is met by domestic crude oil with the remainder mostly coming from Brunei. The facility has been shutdown several times recently due to technical problems at its Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracking unit.

In October, Vietnam's main crude oil destinations included Japan (185,802 mt or 23.2%), Malaysia (152,741 mt or 19.1%) and Thailand (137,076 mt or 17.1%).

In January-October, Vietnam exported 7.8 million mt of crude oil, up 13.3% year-on-year. Vietnam mainly exported its crude oil to Japan (2.27 million mt or 29.1%), Australia (1.35 million mt 17.3%) and China (1.13 million mt or 14.5%).

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Meanwhile, the stable operation of the Dung Quat refinery in combination with low domestic demand drove down Vietnamese oil product imports in October.

Vietnam imported 706,148 mt of oil products, down 8.5% from October 2011 and down 6.8% from September.

The country's largest oil product importer, state-owned Petrolimex, has decided to skip purchasing spot gasoline imports for a second straight month in December, a source close to the matter said last week. This is largely due to expectations that domestic buying will continue to remain low into December due to ample spot availability from the Dung Quat refinery.

In October, Vietnam main oil product suppliers included Singapore (379,369 mt or 53.7%), China (129,734 mt or 18.3%) and Thailand (69,711 mt or 9.8%).

During January-October, Vietnam imported 7.9 million mt of oil products, down 13.7% year-on-year. The country mainly imported its oil products from Singapore (3.36 million mt or 42.5%), Taiwan (1.11 million mt or 14%) and China (1.09 million mt or 13.8%).

Source: Platt