Nguyen Ngoc Toan - Deputy Chief of the Management Board of Nhon Hoi Economic Zone - said local officials had met with Thailand’s PTT Group on the progress of the Nhon Hoi (Victory) petrochemical project.

Toan said the province extended the deadline by the end of June and if PTT does not have positive changes, this investor will have to withdraw to give land to other investors.

According to this official, PTT has hired experts, including those from the Vietnam Petroleum Institute to study and assess this project to restructure it on the grounds that the price of oil on the world market has fallen too deeply.

 PTT and its partner - Saudi Aramco from Saudi Arabia pledged to have the official answer about the scale and pace of the project by the end of June.

According to the initial plan, by mid 2015, Binh Dinh would grant investment certificate for this project but this has been delayed.

PTT and Saudi Aramco last year explained that they had not performed necessary investment procedures because they wanted to find a local partner to implement the project.

Binh Dinh officials and the investors discussed with representatives of the Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) but they did not reach any agreement.

In February 2016, the investor proposed to reassess the whole project. Accordingly, PTT and Saudi Aramco are likely to change the scale, reduce the capacity and slow down the progress of this project compared to the initial plan. The capital is likely to reduce to below $22 billion, and the processing capacity is expected to drop to 400,000 barrels of oil per day.

If it is implemented, this project will become the largest foreign direct investment one in terms of registered investment capital in Vietnam.

Nhon Hoi oil refinery project is designed to have a refining capacity of 440,000 barrels of crude oil per day, equivalent to 20 million tons of crude oil per year.

Of the total amount, 12 million tons would be used for fuel production and the remainder for other petrochemical products.

As scheduled, the project would have the first products in 2021 and be able to turn out more than 20 types of products. The investors will consider plans to increase the capacity up to 30 million tons of crude oil a year depending on return on investment.

The government of Binh Dinh Province has prepared 2,000 hectares of cleared land in Nhon Hoi Economic Zone for the oil refinery and petrochemical complex.

When put in place, Nhon Hoi oil refinery is projected to contribute as many as US$4-5 billion per year to the country’s economy.