Fake fuel mixing facilities, such as the Crazy Buffalo in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc District, need recycled oil as a base raw material, which is mainly sourced from illegal production facilities based in a forest in Cu Chi District and the neighboring province of Dong Nai.

>> Inside a fake gasoline mixing facility The recycled oil is produced from waste lubricant oil, which is bought at a dirt cheap price of VND4,000 a liter, while the recycled product is sold at VND18,400 a liter. The facility is located inside a dense melaleuca forest in Tan An Hoi Commune, Cu Chi District, where three sides of the oil extracting and distilling section are sheltered by the woods. There are two distiller machines at the facility and hundreds of casks scattered around the ground, which is dyed black from leaked oil and lubricants. The recycled oil is a condensed, black liquid, which will be mixed with some unknown chemicals to turn it bright yellow. “We can produce whatever types and colors of oil you wish,” an employee said. The facility is run without a license by a man called Hung, from the central province of Quang Ngai. Hung directs the extracting and distilling work on a daily basis, and has the recycled oil transported by tanker trucks disguised as normal trucks for distribution to fuel depots. The illegal facility supplies some 5,000 liters of oil every day and employs around 10 people. Hung has been working in the oil extracting sector for years, and used to run similar facilities in Hoc Mon District and Long An province. “Working in this business means you have to change your location constantly to avoid detections by police and environment management officials,” he said.Tires turned into red oil Elsewhere, in a valley in the southern province of Dong Nai’s Ho Nai Commune, there is another oil producing facility with uses car tires as the main raw material, rather than waste lubricant oil. The area, run by a man called Thanh, is full of piles of used tires and a burning smell hangs in the air. It takes eight hours to turn 3.5kg of tires into a liter of red oil, which Thanh said is called FO-R oil. The facility has been operating for nearly a year with 12 employees, supplying some 100 tons of red oil on a monthly basis. Some 80 percent of the product is bought by a fuel mixing facility in Dong Nai, while the remaining will be distributed in the retail market, revealed Thanh. The man said that previously there were as many as four oil distilling facilities in the area. “But local residents have complained of the black and smelly smoke emitted from the facilities, so they had to relocate to the Central Highlands of Lam Dong,” he said, adding that only his facility remains unfazed. Thanh also revealed that the oil extracting method he has been using was brought to Vietnam by a group of Chinese men.Other tricks Besides producing oil from waste lubricant and used tires, some fuel mixing employees said there are still other ways to make substandard oil. In another method, the facility owners will buy waste engine oil from different sources, pour it into 220-liter casks, and burn it for 12 hours. The oil will be then mixed with a chemical which will enable some 150 liters of clean lubricant to float to the top of the casks. Meanwhile, authentic fuel oil (FO) can be mixed with a chemical imported from China and burned for 10 hours at 250 degree Celsius to produce diesel oil. “Every 12 cubic meters of FO can produce 8 cubic meters of diesel oil,” some employees revealed.