Vietnam has updated its plans for the partial privatisation of Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical, the owner and operator of the US$3bn Dung Quat refinery in the central Quang Ngai Province.
A 5 to 6% stake in the company should be sold via an initial public offering (IPO) in the fourth quarter of 2017; it was initially planned (September 2016) by the end of June 2017. Up to 36% of the company could be sold to strategic partners within 12 months of the IPO. Rosneft, PTT (Thailand) and Kuwait Petroleum Corp have already expressed interest in buying an interest in the Dung Quat refinery, along with Gazprom Neft (Russia), which had earlier halted negotiations to acquire a 49% stake in the company.
The 130,000 bbl/d refinery was commissioned in 2009 by Binh Son, a subsidiary state-owned oil group PetroVietnam, and is currently the sole refinery operating in the country, covering about 30% of local oil demand. Dung Quat plans to add 40,000 bbl/d by 2021. A second refinery, the 200,000 bbl/d Nghi Son project worth US$7.5bn, is currently under construction and should be commissioned in 2017.