Dung Quat Refinery expansion plan fixed at 8.5 mln tons of crude and investment of USD 1.82 billion

After much study and calibration, the ambitious plan to expand and upgrade the Dung Quat oil refinery based in Dung Quat Economic Zone of central coastal Quang Ngai province has been eventually fixed and ratified by an Investment Certificate issued by the local government. The target capacity is announced to be 8.5 million tons of crude per year (192,000 barrels per day),  lower than the figure of 10 million tons as tentatively publicized previously. The total cost for this plan is said to be roughly 1.81 billion USD, 30% of which shall be contributed by the involved partner(s) and the remaining 70% shall comes from loans, according to a news article from PVN/BSR.

A ceremony was organized on 23rd Jan 2015 at Dungquat EZ to officially announce the expansion project.

JFE discontinues plan for steelworks in Vietnam

In  a press release made on its website, JFE has officially announced its decision to quit involvement in the Guang Lian Steel project located in Dung Quat Economic Zone, Quang Ngai province, leaving E-United Group alone with the project.

The press release did not reveal the reasons for JFE Steel’s discontinuing the participation in the project; however, insiders tend to link this leaving decision to the fact of unapproved investment incentives and the fierce competitions from giant steel mills under construction in Vietnam and in the region.  The situation raises the questions over whether E-United Group would go on with the project and how it would arrange the finance to feed this big steelwork.

Source from Dungquat Economic Zone Authority was quoted as saying that if the investor wants to move on, it has to pledge to follow a clear construction road map otherwise the province would consider revoke the investment certificate, recover the allocated land, and pay back to the investor what it has spent legitimately.

In a report by local authority addressed to the government late 2012, the disbursed investment capital of the project was said to be valued at around $ 50 million then as declared by the investor.

While the 9.9 billion Formosa steel project is on its good progress in north central Ha Tinh province, it’s not clear to outsiders which path  the Guang Lian project is heading to.

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Guang Lian Steel Project in Dung Quat: in the balancing art of "give-and-take"

150,000 DWT oil tanker accesses Dungquat SPM

According to news released by PVN, on 23^rd August 2014, Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (BSR) successfully received crude oil tanker of 150,000 DWT to import 1 million barrels of AZERI crude oil from Azerbaijan through the Single Point Mooring (SPM) system of Dung Quat Oil Refinery. This is the biggest first-ever oil tanker accessing this facility after 5 years of operation; in the past, only tankers of up to 110,000 DWT could visit here.

During the 2^nd overall maintenance of the refinery which lasted 57 days, nearly 7,000 items were done with the involvement of 3,400 professional staffs of BSR, contractors, partners. It was divided into 5 main packages, notably the the package 4 was implemented by BSR themselves including the maintenance of rotating equipment, electrical equipment, automation equipment, a number of simple static devices and oil pipelines. Meanwhile, the repair of defects for thermal expansion joints EX-101 in RFCC workshop was conducted by Technip/JGC contractor (EPC contractor of Dung Quat Oil Refinery Plant) and connection of awaiting ends for SRU 2 project was implemented by JGC contractor.

The first 150,000 DWT Oil Tanker at Dungquat SPM. Photo courtesy: PVN

Following the successful maintenance and upgrading of single-point mooring buoy, BSR imported the first crude oil from tanker of 150,000 DWT instead of 110,000 DWT previously. At transformation cost of US$ 300,000 only, SPM system has been improved to receive crude oil vessels of double capacity from Aframax vessel size (80,000 - 110,000 DWT) to Suezmax vessel size (150,000 DWT). Currently, BSR is capable of receiving crude oil from different regions of the world such as West Africa, the Mediterranean ... to help diversify sources of crude oil for processing at Dung Quat Oil Refinery, improving efficiency, reducing production costs and saving USD 10-15 million .

It was the 398^th crude oil vessel received BSR through this SPM since the plant was put into operation in 2009, with totally 31,288,140 million tons of crude oil handled, approximately 27,985,737 tons of products refined.