At the commercial operation ceremony (Photo: VNA)Thanh Hoa (VNA) – The Nghi Son oilrefinery and petrochemical plant in the north central province of Thanh Hoaofficially began its commercial operation on December 23.
“The commercial operation of the project is significant tothe national development in terms of politics, economy, society, security anddefence and contributes to ensuring national energy security,” Prime MinisterNguyen Xuan Phuc said at the launching ceremony.
The commercial operation of the plant marks abreakthrough development in the country’s oil refinery-petrochemical sector, hesaid.
Together with the Dung Quat oil refinery in the centralprovince of Quang Ngai, the fuel provided by Nghi Son will meet about 80percent of the domestic demand, thus reducing dependence on imports fromforeign markets, he added.
So far, this is the biggest project in Vietnamregarding construction scale and total investment.
The project is a symbol of internationalcooperation that received special attention and support from the Vietnamesegovernment and its important partners – namely Japan and Kuwait, the PM said.
It helps create a skilled workforce, serving as a “nucleus”for the development of human resources in the region, he said.
The government leader highly valued the warm support ofpeople from Tinh Gia district in Thanh Hoa to hand over their land for theconstruction of the plant.
He asked Thanh Hoa authorities, the VietnamNational Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), the management board of Nghi SonEconomic Zone, and the Nghi Son oil refinery company to continue taking goodcare of local lives.
”The commercial operation of the plant is an important event,marking a big milestone in the socio-economic achievement of Vietnam at the endof 2018”, the PM said.
The Nghi Son oil refinery and petrochemical project has been carried out since2013.
It is invested by PetroVietnam (25.1 percent),Kuwait Petroleum International (35.1 percent), and the Japanese firms Idemitsui Kosan (35.1 percent) andMitsui Chemicals (4.7 percent).
The plant is located at Nghi Son Economic Zone –one of the key coastal economic zones and a national key location of oil andgas.
With a total investment capital of nearly 9.3 billion USD,the plant is a world-class deep processing petrochemical complex using the mostadvanced technology with the full capacity of 200,000 barrels of crude oil perday in the first phase.
At present, the plant has successfully produced 10 kinds ofpetrochemical products.
As of December 2018, the plant processed around 5 milliontonnes of crude oil and contributed over 8 trillion VND to the State budget.
As planned, when reaching its full capacity, theplant could process 10 million tonnes of crude oil per year, meeting 40 percentof the domestic fuel market. Nearly 17 percent of the petrochemical productswill be exported to foreign markets.-VNA
VNA
