The project will be built in Long Son oil and gas industrial zone (IZ), according to director of the provincial IZ management board, Le Minh Chau.

The parties in the joint venture include the two State-run corporations-Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), Vietnam National Chemical Corporation (Vinachem)-and two subsidiaries of the Thai Siam Cement Group (SCG)-Vina SCG Chemicals Co Ltd and Thai Plastic and Chemicals Public Co Ltd.

The Thai partners own a 71 percent stake in the venture with the remainder owned by the Vietnamese firms.

The 400ha Greenfield petrochemical complex will be composed of four main plants.

It will include an international-scale facility producing olefins with an annual designed capacity of 1.65 million tonnes; one producing polyolefins of 1.45 million tonnes; one processing Chlor-Alkali of 280,000 tonnes; and one processing raw materials for Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) plastics, 330,000 tonnes of EDC and 400,000 tonnes of VCM.

Construction and operation of the complex will be divided into two phases, with the PVC-related plants likely to begin operating in 2012 and the others in 2013.

Another project in the pipeline

In a similar move, another State-owned group, the Vietnam National Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex) plans to invest US$4.5 billion in building an oil refinery in the central coastal Province of Khanh Hoa.

The group’s management board chairman Vu Ngoc Hai said that Petrolimex and its partner, the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (SinopecCorp), are planning to survey the project’s 200ha site to present an initial report to the relevant agencies.

Crude oil is scheduled to be imported from either Singapore or the Middle East to feed the oil refinery, which will be capable of processing 10 million tonnes of crude per year.