Singapore : Vietnam, which commissioned its sole refinery last year, offered its first fuel oil cargoes for export in what may be a test case for sales of products unsuitable for domestic use.
PV Oil Co, a unit of state-owned Vietnam Oil & Gas Group or PetroVietnam, offered to sell as much as 35,000 metric tonnes of 180-centistoke fuel oil with three per cent sulphur from its Dung Quat refinery, according to a document emailed yesterday to potential buyers. The facility, which can process 148,000 barrels a day of crude oil, started commercial operations in February last year.
"It's unusual to export — maybe they're testing the export mechanism," said Victor Shum, a senior principal at US energy consultants Purvin & Gertz Inc in Singapore. "Even though Vietnam doesn't have a whole lot of fuel oil demand, the domestic market ought to be able to absorb production."
Vietnam, a net fuel importer, has continued to buy fuel including gasoline and diesel even after Dung Quat opened. Vietnam National Petroleum Corp, or Petrolimex, handles the bulk of the country's purchases and yesterday separately sought to buy so-called "C Specification" fuel oil, which is of a slightly lower quality.
The country imports 50,000 barrels a day of fuel oil, Shum said. That's equivalent to 233,000 tonnes a month. Over the first two weeks of March, 340,000 tonnes of physical supplies changed hands over the counter in Singapore, Asia's biggest oil-trading centre.
PV Oil's offer is for five cargoes for loading between March 23 and March 31, according to yesterday's document.
Smaller cargoes will load at Dung Quat's berth 6, which has a restriction of 5,000 deadweight tonnes and a depth of 8.3 metres, the document showed. It can load at 700 cubic metres an hour. Larger cargoes of between 8,000 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes will load at Vung Tau's berth 1.
PV Oil's Ho Chi Minh City-based deputy director for petroleum, Hoang Dinh Tung, declined to comment when contacted by telephone.
