Dung Quat refinery continues to suffer delays

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has warned that delays in the construction of the country’s first oil refinery at Dung Quat in the central coastal province of Quang Ngai were hampering the domestic petroleum industry. The refinery is already six months behind schedule and further delays would be costly for both the industry and the nation, Dung was quoted as saying. Construction on the 130,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) grassroots refinery began in November 2005 after numerous delays and setbacks, the last of which saw PetroVietnam’s equal partner in the project, Russia’s Zarubezhneft, withdraw in late 2002. Vietnam has approved a second refinery project with a capacity of 6.5 million metric tons per year (130,000 bpd) at Nghi Son in the central province of Thanh Hoa, but plans for the facility mostly remain on the drawing board. (April 25, 2007)