Saigon scraps deal with Dung Quat

Vietnam’s Saigon Petro has decided to cancel a deal with the country’s only refiner after it failed to take the full contracted volumes of diesel fuel and gasoline every month, traders said. Under the agreement, the 140,000 barrel per day (bpd) Dung Quat refinery was to provide Saigon Petro with a total of 50,000 tons of gasoline and diesel fuel a month through PV Oil, starting August. But so far, it has received a total of less than 20,000 tons due to unstable operations at the refinery, which was shut on August 21 because of technical problems. (October 8, 2009)