Vietnam’s First Refinery


Rumour has it that “the first flow of commercial oil” was turning on the crude distillation column… and turning it off later.

From the pages of Bernama:

Vietnam’s First Oil Refinery Begins Production

QUANG NGAI, Feb 23 (Bernama) — Vietnam officially inaugurated its first oil refinery on Sunday, in what is being hailed as an important event in the country’s development and energy security, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended the inauguration ceremony and pressed the button to launch the first flow of commercial oil of the Dung Quat oil refinery that is located in the central province of Quang Ngai.

I believe the other comment that the refinery has received is that it is in the middle of the country, far from any petroleum production centers. What gives? Here’s an article from Reuters:

The Vietnamese government may view cases like Yen’s as proof its decision to build the refinery here was visionary, bringing economic opportunity to one of Vietnam’s poorest regions.

But economists and political analysts have criticised the refinery project as, perhaps, the mother of all examples of how politics interferes with economic decision-making in Vietnam.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under engineering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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