Thai-VN venture to build refinery, power plant

Thailand’s STFE Limited Company and Viet Nam’s Khang Thong Group, who have entered into a joint venture to build an oil refinery in Binh Dinh Province, will do the technical design for it together with another Thai company.

They signed a contract for the purpose with PTTES Company yesterday.

The joint venture, KST Energy Development Joint Venture Co Ltd, has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the central province to build the refinery at the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone.

When completed, the refinery would have an annual capacity of six million tonnes of petroleum products in the first phase before being doubled later, the investors said.

They have refused to divulge the cost but sources say it will be built on a 150ha site.

Tran Thi Thu Ha, deputy head of the Binh Dinh People’s Committee, who witnessed the signing ceremony, called on the investors to complete the work on schedule.

In two weeks’ time the investors will begin geological studies at the site.

Russian and American companies had expressed interest in becoming involved with the refinery, the investors said.

KST Energy will also build a deep-sea port to serve the refinery which will import crude oil.

Viet Nam is encour-aging investment in oil refineries to reduce its reliance on imports of petroleum products. The country has only one operational refinery, Dung Quat in the central Quang Ngai Province which has an annual capacity of 6.5 million tonnes.

On the same day, KST Energy and Russia’s Energoproekt Company signed a contract to perform a feasibility study for building a thermal power plant near the refinery.

Work on the US$900 million plant, which will have a capacity of 700MW in the first phase, will begin in the second quarter of next year and wrap up in 2015.

STFE Company is a multi-disciplinary engineering services company with investments in several countries. Khang Thong Group is involved in infrastructure and real estate development and has developed, among others, the $2-billion Happyland amusement park in Long An Province. —VNS

Tags: STFE Limited Company