Vietnamese consumers will have cheap petrol in 10 years

VNBusinessNews – Though the Dung Quat oil refinery has become operational, Vietnamese people will still have to wait 10 more years to have cheap petrol.

Nguyen Viet Thang, Deputy General Director of Binh Son Petrolchemical Company Ltd, said that the crude oil Vietnam sells to Dung Quat oil refinery does not bear the export tax, but is imposed value added tax (VAT) and other kinds of tax in accordance with the current laws, and that the crude oil price is still equal to the export price.

Therefore, Thang said, the sale prices of the products of Dung Quat oil refineries will be equal to the import prices. After the oil refinery is put into stable operation, the distribution will undergo the mode of auctioning. The low cost petrol will only appear when the amortization period finishes, which is estimated to be in 10 years.

The Viet Nam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) has been and will continue to be the leader in the field of oil exploitation and petrochemical in Vietnam, but it remains far from meeting 100% of the domestic demand.

According to the Vietnam Petroleum Institute (VPI), besides the Dung Quat Oil Refinery with the capacity of 6.5 million tons per year, Vietnam will also have Long Son Oil Refinery which is expected to become operational in 2012 – 2015, which will have the capacity of 7-9 million tons per year, and with 7-8 million tons/year, the Nghi Son Oil Refinery is expected to become operational in 2012-2020.

According to Nguyen Huy Tien and Le Ngoc Quang, energy experts, in a middle-of-the-road scenario, PetroVietnam can satisfy 30-60% of the market demand. After 2020, if PetroVietnam does not build any other oil refineries to maintain its market share of 40-50%, it will have to seek petrol and oil supply sources from outside sources.

Energy experts have warned that Vietnamese people still have to practice thriftiness in energy consumption in the long-term. (TP)