Nghi Son refinery, Vietnam’s largest provider of petrol and oil, has been temporarily shut down for fixing a technical problem, resulting in a reduction of up to half of its planned output over the first 10 days of this month.

The facility, fully known as Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC (NSRP), has been handling the incident that occurred in the end of December 2022, according to a source of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Specifically, the plant had to halt its residual fluid catalytic cracking system due to fluid leakages.

This is the second output decline that the refinery, located in north-central Thanh Hoa Province, has faced since January last year.

NSRP has reported to the Ministry of Industry and Trade about the problem that will likely reduce the facility’s petrol and oil production by 20 to 50 percent during the first ten days of this year.

The plant is expected to produce and supply around 600,000 cubic meters of petrol and oil to the market in January, NSRP said.

The plant would resume normal operation by mid-January and increase production to make up for the output shortage, according to a meeting held recently by the ministry with relevant parties.

The ministry asked NSRP to look into the root cause of the incident to avoid similar occurrences in the future, and report the troubleshooting to it by Saturday.

The ministry asked NSRP and Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical JSC (BSR), which operates Dung Quat Oil Refinery in central Quang Ngai Province, to maximize their capacity and use stockpiles or other sources to make up for the reduction. 

NSRP and BSR are the two largest plants that provide 80 percent of petrol and oil for the Vietnamese market.

In an urgent dispatch to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) and other fuel enterprises and traders, the ministry requested them to ensure petrol and oil supply amid the output decline at NSRP.

Meanwhile, wholesalers were asked to seek alternative supply sources and increase imports to guarantee sufficient supply before, during and after the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, which will begin on January 22.

In January last year, NSRP had to cut production by 25 percent due to a cash crunch, which gave rise to a fuel shortage across the country.

Built in 2018, NSRP meets around 40 percent of Vietnam’s fuel demand of up to 1.8 million cubic meters per month.

A joint venture project between Petrovietnam, Kuwait Petroleum International and Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui Chemicals, NSRP is capable of making 10 million metric tons of crude oil per year, twice more than that of Dung Quat.

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