Nghi Son oil refinery resumes full capacity on Sunday

The Nghi Son oil refinery in central Vietnam completed repairs last Friday and resumed full capacity from Sunday afternoon, in line with the request of Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien.

Le Nguyen Quoc Vinh, deputy general director and representative of state-run Petrovietnam at Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC (NSRP), emphasized the oil refinery can fulfill the domestic demand for petroleum before, during, and after the Lunar New Year holiday (Tet), the country's most important holiday.

The factory would maximize its output to offset the reduced output during scheduled regular maintenance later this year, he added.

Earlier this month, the complex in the central province of Thanh Hoa reported its output had reduced by 20-25% in the first 10 days of January due to technical issues along its residue fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) section. As a result, January output could only reach 600,000 cubic meters of products, versus 620,000 and 770,000 cubic meters in February and March, respectively, reported NSRP, operator of the facility.

Vinh stressed the factory had initially detected faulty signs in April-June 2022, however, it had opted not to conduct repairs at the time and instead wait for the regular maintenance in 2023. As more faulty signs were detected on December 25 last year, the plant stopped part of its operations on December 28 to prepare for repair work.

The 55-day regular maintenance, which is scheduled to begin on August 25, is set to decrease the plant's output to 79.6%, equivalent to 7.96 million tons of products. NSRP also reported that the plant's daily output is 5,000 cubic meters of gasoline and 12,000 cubic meters of diesel, or 17,000 cubic meters in total.

At a working session with the facility last Thursday, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien asked Nghi Son and Dung Quat oil refineries, the only two in Vietnam, to maximize their performances, in a move to offset any reduction in output during maintenance. Additionally, he asked major petroleum distributors to proactively find altenative sources to offset the reduced supply of Nghi Son refinery.

Nghi Son is a $9 billion refinery co-owned by Petrovietnam, Kuwait Petroleum Europe B.V. (KPE), and Japan’s Mitsui Chemical and Idemitsu Kosan Co.

Dung Quat Refinery is a Petrovietnam subsidiary and has received more than $3 billion in investments.