Thai Nguyen province approves $19 mln gas project for Germany’s Messer

Messer Hai Phong Industrial Gas, a subsidiary of German industrial gas producer Messer, has received an investment certificate for its $19.25 million project in the northern province of Thai Nguyen.

The 4,000-square-meter project is set to enter operation in the third quarter of 2024, providing 9,200 normal cubic meters per hour (Nm3/h) of oxygen, 3,450 Nm3/h of nitrogen, six tons of liquid oxygen per day, and 11 tons of liquid argon per day.

The duration of project, located in Song Cong I Industrial Park, is until August 2049.

The project aims to supply oxygen to steel mills and nitrogen to electronic component producers in the province, according to an environmental impact assessment conducted by the province.

Messer entered Vietnam in 1997 and now runs three subsidiaries in Hai Phong city in the north and Binh Duong and Binh Phuoc provinces in the south. It has invested over $250 million in Vietnam and currently operates nine facilities with over 400 staff.

In June, the industrial zone authority in Quang Ngai gave an in-principle nod to Messer to build a $133 million factory in the central province's Dung Quat Economic Zone. The project’s designed capacity is 240,000 normal cubic meters of oxygen and nitrogen gas an hour; 400 tons of liquid argon, oxygen and nitrogen a day; and 12.09 normal cubic meters of krypton, xenon and a mix of helium and neon a day.

The company's latest project in Thai Nguyen province is the $43 million Messer Yen Binh factory, inaugurated last year.

In the first six months of this year, Thai Nguyen attracted 15 new foreign direct investment projects with total registered capital of $116.75 million. The province is an industrial hub in the north and home to a Samsung factory. It has attracted 185 valid FDI projects to date with total registered capital of $10.5 billion.

Vietnam’s index of industrial production (IIP) showed signs of a recovery with year-on-year growth of 2.8% in June, but fell 1.2% year-on-year in the first six months of this year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported.

Buckling the trend, Thai Nguyen’s IIP grew 4.14% year-on-year in the first six months of this year, including a 3.92% increase in June, according to provincial data. However, the province stressed challenges for the sector, including slow growth of the global economy impacting consumption demand, firms’ limited access to credit, high prices of input materials and energy, and others.