Vietnam’s Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical is considering the sale of a further stake in the company ahead of a possible listing in April next year on the country’s main bourse, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

The funds would be used for an upgrade of its Dung Quat refinery, aiming to raise capacity to at least 192,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 148,000 bpd now and to allow it to process more types of crude oil.

Chief executive Tran Ngoc Nguyen told Reuters the stake sale, which will follow a $245 million initial public offering in January, would be through a private placement or auction.

The initial sale of a 7.79 percent stake in the refinery was part of the Vietnamese government’s plan to privatise hundreds of state-owned enterprises to boost their performance, relax a tight state budget and reform an economy that is highly reliant on foreign investments.

Shares of the company have been trading on the unlisted public company market, or UPCoM, since March, and Nguyen said they would be listed on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the country’s main bourse, by April next year.

Vietnam’s first refinery, Dung Quat began operations in 2009 and was initially designed to process light sweet crude oil, mostly sourced from the Bach Ho field offshore Vietnam.

The upgrade will enable the plant to process sour crude oil as well, Nguyen said, and will also allow it to produce more petrochemical products.

Binh Son said in a statement on Wednesday that it will select an engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the upgrade next year.

Nguyen said seven companies had registered to bid for the contract, but declined to name them.

Binh Son said in the statement its net profit in the first half of this year was estimated at 2.95 trillion dong ($129 million), about 85 percent of its full-year target.

($1 = 22,810 dong) 

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