MOSCOW (MRC) -- Thailand's state-controlled PTT has decided to review plans to develop a large refining and petrochemical project in Vietnam's Binh Dinh province as it needs to reconsider the project size and investment, an official from the company's investor relations department said in an email statement, reported Apic-online.
The delay of the proposed 400,000 b/d Victory refining and petrochemical project in Binh Dinh is mainly due to the uncertainty in global oil prices and Vietnamese partners, the official said, without clarifying on the local partners.
PTT said last month it will continue to seek a Vietnamese partner to join the project.
In the feasibility study submitted to the Vietnamese government in September 2014, the Thai company proposed building a fully integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in Binh Dinh with a crude processing capacity of 400,000 b/d, or 20 million mt/year.
The IR official now said the company remains committed to the project but will finish a review on it by year-end.
"However, PTT will continue with the project and we are considering optimizing the project size and investment scope. Regarding the timeline, we plan to review the configuration and project size, and target to finish by the end of the year," said the official.
A senior expert from Vietnam Petroleum Institute, the research arm of state-owned PetroVietnam said in May that PTT and its potential joint venture partner Saudi Aramco have hired consultants to assess the feasibility of the Victory refining and petrochemicals project.
Aramco Asia, working on behalf of the partners, hired VPI for the study and has accepted its findings.
The PTT IR official has yet to provide a reply on whether Aramco is still cooperating with PTT in the Victory project as of Friday.
Binh Dinh provincial officials on June 27 had a meeting to discuss the project with PTT, according to the provincial government website.
Vietnam's Saigon Times Online on Wednesday cited its own source in Binh Dinh as saying PTT is likely to scale down half of the project size.
The Thai company no longer mentioned the search for a Vietnamese partner during the meeting earlier this week with Binh Dinh officials, which the source said as not necessary anymore as the project size will be reduced.
In another development, PTT said on June 17 that its board of directors has reviewed the company's investment plan to reflect the operation and current circumstances as well as effective budgeting by lowering the 2016 investment plan to Baht 43,307 million (USD1.23 billion) from Baht 50,839 million. The reduction is mainly from investment projects in the natural gas and infrastructure sectors.
As MRC wrote previously, in May 2016, PTT announced that the company planned to boost sales in Southeast Asia to offset weak demand from China, the company's biggest overseas market. Thus, PTT Global, the petrochemical flagship of Thai top energy firm PTT Pcl, planned to increase exports to the region to 10-15 percent over the next two years from 5 percent now, said Chief Executive Supattanapong Punmeechaow.
PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.p
MRC