Petrovietnam reports revenues

The Viet Nam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) has reported 25.6 trillion VND (1.6 billion US$) in revenue for the first two months of the year, setting a 168.3 trillion VND (10.5 billion US$) target for 2007, said Dinh La Thang, company chairman.

Thang made his statements at a company conference in the capital city on March 1.

PetroVietnam earned around 1.12 billion US$ in January and February from exporting 2.58 million tonnes of crude oil, and is expected to pay 10.2 trillion VND (638mio US$) in taxes, said Deputy General Director Le Minh Hong.

The company pumped 2.54 million tonnes of oil, 1.34 billion cubic metres of natural gas and churned out 125,000 tonnes of fertiliser in the two months.

To meet its revenue target, said Thang, PetroVietnam plans to pump 17.5 million tonnes of oil, 7.3 billion cubic metres of natural gas and produce 680,000 tonnes of fetiliser this year.

The State-enterprise also plans to invest another 77.9 trillion VND to expand production and capacity. To satisfy its capital needs, the company plans to create a bank subsidiary, said Thang.

PetroVietnam has submitted documents on the bank project to relevant ministries for Government approval.

Thang said that if the project proposal passes, the company hopes to establish the bank in July.

The domestic oil giant also hopes to complete the equitisation of three subsidiaries - Northern Liquefied Gas Co., Southern Liquefied Gas Co. and Fetiliser and Petro-chemical Co., in March to help raise investment capital.

The group has so far equitised six of its companies and created four new subsidiaries.

PetroVietnam aims to increase its revenue by an average of 15% a year from now until 2015, and wants to increase annual oil output by 18-20 tonnes.

In addition, it has partnered with companies in Venezuela, Malaysia and other countries to explore oil fields abroad.

Nguyen Van Minh, director of PetroVietnam's Oil and Gas Exploitation Department, said through these joint efforts the company helped pump 30,000 tonnes of oil in foreign fields in 2006. The company wants to increase this figure to 1-1.5 million tonnes by 2010.

With help of foreign oil, the group forecasts that it will be able to meet demand from its three planned refineries: Dung Quat and Nghi Son are currently under construction, while the company is looking for overseas partners to co-invest in the third.

Source: VNA