The country’s first petrol private conglomerate Sao Nam Petro was officially inaugurated with participation of four powerful international companies in Ha Noi late Tuesday.

They included DSME of South Korea, AGR of Norway, and Long beach Oil and Otto Energy both from Australia.

Deputy chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Duc Kien said the founding of Sao Nam Petro would promote innovation in energy development and security.

He asked the financially powerful conglomerate to rapidly implement oil and gas projects in Viet Nam.

Pham Van Quang, chairman of Sao Nam Group, said the enterprise would focus its investment on oil and gas exploration and exploitation of marginal small oilfields and plots in larger fields.

An official from the Sao Nam Petro’s communication department, who declined to be named, said it was not an appropriate time to reveal its charter capital and percentage stakes held by the shareholders in the conglomerate.

It planned to call on other foreign investors, especially for large projects, and they would sign joint operating contracts to co-implement the projects, the official said.

It would also invest to develop strategic oil reservoirs, gas pipelines from the northern to the central and southern areas of the country and other projects.

The enterprise at first will undertake projects at the marginal oilfields offshore from Viet Nam’s threshold and build a factory producing dimethyl ether (DME) – an innovative clean fuel, which has properties similar to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). It also plans to build a gas reservoir in the North

Viet Nam still greatly relies on imports of LPG from regional countries. The application of clean technologies to produce DME will help curtail LPG imports in the future.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News