Currently, nearly all of Vietnam s proven crude oil and natural gas reserves lie offshore, mostly in the Cuu Long and the Nam Con Son basins off the country s southern coast - at the time of writing, proven oil reserves stood at around -.-bn bbl and gas reserves at ---.-bcm. Vietnam s strong pipeline of active exploration projects offers long-term upside risk to our forecasts. Our Upstream Projects database shows -- offshore projects in the exploration phase. Gradual development of these projects will contribute small reserves additions over the next decade, helping to partly offset natural declines at some of the country s more mature producing assets, namely the Bach Ho field. National oil company PetroVietnam maintains a significant presence in the domestic exploration space, with stakes in -- of these projects. ...Russian firms are also major players in the offshore exploration segment, with state-owned Gazprom enjoying close working relationship with PetroVietnam. Vietgazprom, the joint operating company between Gazprom and PetroVietnam, is exploring in blocks ---, --- and ------- in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South Konshan basins, respectively.
...Binh Dinh province scrapped PTT PCL and Saudi Aramco-led development of the Nhon Hoi refinery, after the USD--.-bn project failed to take-off following four years of delays. Japan s Tokyo Gas formed an LNG joint-venture (JV), LNG Vietnam, with state-owned PetroVietnam and private firm Bitexco. ...Vietnam is set to become a net importer of both crude oil and natural gas from ----, due to falling production and rising domestic energy requirements. The start-up of two new LNG import terminals, the Thi Vai and Son My terminals (slated for ---- and ----, respectively), remains critical to our forecasts. As such, delays or cancellations to these projects could pose downside risk to our forecasts and increase the risk of a gas shortage. A more than threefold increase in refining capacity will not be sufficient to alleviate Vietnam s large deficit in refined fuels. We forecast Vietnam will require an average of ---,---b/d of fuels imports over ---------.
...Several large refinery construction projects in the pipeline, which will more than triple the country s total distillation capacity by ---- and present growth opportunities in the downstream. Expected start-up of two new LNG import terminals in ---- and ----, respectively, will allow domestic gas consumption to grow robustly, opening up investment opportunities in the natural gas sector - notably pipelines. ...
