The remaining petrol capacity of around 170,000 tons is only enough for domestic consumption for one week, Giang said.

As planned, the plant will resume operations on September 15. However, the bidders and the operator are trying to narrow the maintenance time by 10 days compared to the plan.

Regarding the upgrading and expansion of Dung Quat Oil Refinery, the JGC contractor (Japan) has completed the first phase of feasible detailed study to increase the plant’s capacity from 6.5 million tons to 9.5-10 million tons per year. This contractor is carrying out the second stage of expanding the refinery whereby the input crude oil will be diversified via importing from Middle East and Venezuela. As expected, by early 2017, the upgrading and expansion of the plant will be finished with an estimated capacity of 9.5-10 million tons per year.

BSR is seeking potential partners to sell 49% stake, meeting the capital demand of about $1-2 billion for the upgrading and expansion of the plant.

So far, Dung Quat Oil Refinery has imported 142 oil tankers (equivalent to 11 million tons of crude oil), produced 9.8 million tonnes of crude oil, processed and provided 9.6 million tonnes of gasoline and oil to the domestic market.