Vietnam data: June crude oil exports fall 68% on year, imports rise

Hanoi — Vietnam exported 313,503 mt (76,599 b/d) of crude oil in June, down 67.5% from a year earlier, according to preliminary customs data released Wednesday.

Vietnam exported 1.88 million mt of crude oil in the first six months, down 49.9% from a year ago, mostly to China, Thailand and Australia.

State-owned PetroVietnam has said that production from major ageing fields will continue to shrink this year while complex geographical conditions at the remaining marginal fields are creating difficulties for the company.

Vietsovpetro, a 51:49 joint venture between PetroVietnam and Russia’s state-owned Zarubezhneft, produced 2.127 million mt of crude oil in H1, down 10.9% year on year, with most key fields seeing a fall in output, S&P Global Platts reported earlier.

Part of Vietnam’s crude output is consumed by the 130,000 b/d refinery at Dung Quat and the rest is exported.

Vietnam imported 268,298 mt of crude oil in June, compared with none a year ago.

The country’s second refinery, the 200,000 b/d Nghi Son facility in the central region, began trial runs on February 28. Vietnam also imports crude for the Dung Quat refinery in Quang Ngai province but not regularly.

The Nghi Son refinery sold its first cargo of 92 RON gasoline on May 1 and 95 RON gasoline on May 8. It sold its first diesel cargo on May 23. Crude oil for Nghi Son is shipped in from Kuwait.

Details of crude imports from each country were not provided.

Vietnam imported 1.25 million mt of crude oil in H1 compared with 280,491 mt a year earlier, the customs data showed.

PetroVietnam has a 25.1% stake in Nghi Son, and its partners are Kuwait Petroleum International (35.1%), Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan (35.1%) and Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals (4.7%).

— Gawoon Philip Vahn, [email protected]

— Newsdesk-Vietnam, [email protected]

— Edited by E Shailaja Nair, [email protected]

Source: S&P Global Platts