A US$1.8 billion project to expand Dung Quat, Vietnam’s only oil refinery, is expected to start by the first quarter of 2016, its operator has said.
Vietnam News Agency on Thursday quoted Dinh Van Ngoc, general director of Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Company, as saying that his firm has chosen the contractor and would sign a deal with the consultancy later this month.
The expansion project, which will cover 108 hectares of land in the Dung Quat Economic Zone in the central province of Quang Ngai, will raise the refinery’s capacity to 192,000 barrels per day (bpd), or 8.5 million tons per year, by 2021, Ngoc said.
As the country’s first refinery, Dung Quat opened in 2009 and now has a capacity of 148,000 bpd, or 6.5 million tons per year.
The plant currently meets 30 percent of the country's demand for oil products. Ngoc expects the expansion to increase the refinery’s market share to 35 percent.
Vietnam has forecast that the demand for petroleum products will reach 27 million tons per year by 2025.
Construction of the country’s second refinery, Nghi Son, began in the central province of Thanh Hoa in October 2013 and is expected to cost $9 billion. The refinery will have a capacity of 200,000 barrels per day, or 10 million tons per year, once it comes online in 2017.
Work on the third refinery, Vung Ro, started in the central province of Phu Yen in September 2014. The $3.2 billion plant will churn out 8 million tons of fuel products a year when it begins operation in 2017.

Source: Thanh Nien News