(VIR) -- Thailand’s national petroleum company, PTT Public Company Limited (PTT), has recently proposed to build a giant USD28.7 billion oil refinery and petrochemical complex in central Binh Dinh province, Vietnam.
According to the Thai firm, the complex would have total refining capacity of 660,000 barrels per day, or 33.6 million tonnes of crude oil per year. If the project is approved, it would be one of the largest oil refinery and petrochemical complexes in Asia.
"After the initial study, PTT said this project would not be effective if having total refining capacity of 10 million tonnes. Therefore, it proposed to build an oil refinery and petrochemical complex with such a large capacity," said Man Ngoc Ly, director of Binh Dinh Economic Zone Management Authority.
He added that the province had already approved this investment proposal in principle. However, PTT will only get investment project for this project if it is approved by the government, because Binh Dinh is not zoned by the government to build an oil refinery and petrochemical project.
PTT so far has invested in a total integration petrochemical business through its eight subsidiaries, starting from upstream to intermediate and polymers both olefin chain and aromatic chain. PTT Group not only becomes the leader player in the country, but also attracts several world leading companies such as LyondellBasell from the US, Asahi Kasei Chemical Corporation from Japan, and Sime Darby Plantation from Malaysia to be the strategic partners in petrochemical business.
We remind, as MRC informed previously, PetroVietnam, state-run Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, had announced earlier this year that it was going to construct the second oil refinery in the country.
Vietnam is likely to become the world's third biggest rubber producer in the future, thus, surpassing Malaysia, according to a recent report by the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries. The association estimated that Vietnam would produce 955,000 tonnes of natural rubber this year, up 17% year-on-year.
MRC