spend valuable foreign currency on importing petrol while domestic
petrol was in oversupply, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said this
week.
It has also contributed to Vietnam National
Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex) losing 41 million USD in exchange
rates so far this year.
Deputy Minister Nguyen Cam Tu said
only 9 out of 11 petrol enterprises had bought petrol produced by Dung
Quat Oil Refinery this year, using only 30-40 percent of its production
capacity.
Petrolimex, which accounted for 60 percent of
the country's market share of petrol, had been expected to buy 28
percent of Dung Quat's output, but had only bought 19 percent.
Tu explained that the reason for the high imports was a shortfall last
year when the new refinery had failed to reach its production target due
to teething problems and as a result petrol traders had had to import
petrol in order to ensure supply.
This year, traders had
again signed contracts to import fuel, hedging against the same thing
happening again at the refinery, but the plant had ironed out its
problems.
Since August it had been producing to its design
capacity, which was equal to 6.5 million tonnes a year, or 30 percent
of the country's needs, exceeding its own yearly plan by 25 percent.
Thus while local production was up, local demand was down as domestic
traders would suffer heavy losses if they cancelled their import
contracts.
The differences in exchange rates had already
caused Petrolimex a loss of 800 billion VND (41 million USD) since the
beginning of the year.
To address the problem, PetroVietnam would plan and work with petrol traders to limit stockpiled petrol and restrict imports.
In the meantime, Petrolimex had targeted to double petrol consumption
from the refinery in the next three months and six out of 11 petrol
importers had sought to reduce their imports to 700,000cu. m.
To date, the plant had processed 4.98 million tonnes and sold 4.74
million tonnes; in particular 4,500 tonnes of aviation fuel Jet A1 fuel
was sold to PB Singapore Petroleum Company.
The country
had imported 7.84 million tonnes in the first nine months, or 67.6
percent of its forecast consumption for the year./.
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