Vietnam Spreads Fertilizer And Power Production Project Investment

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Inc.; Houston, Texas). A $360 million fertilizer plant project at Phu My, Baria Vun-Tau Province, Vietnam should be ready for operation in 2004. The Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation (Petro, Vietnam) awarded the project contract to a consortium of Technip and Samsung Engineering in 2001.

The Phu My fertilizer plant will use natural gas from the Chu Long and Nam Con Son basins. It is part of an industrial center, which the Vietnamese government is seeking to encourage in the hope that the facilities, such as power generation, will be of common usefulness to all the local industrial plants.

The plant is designed to be the largest of its kind in the country. It will produce 1,350 tons per day of ammonia based on Haldor Topsoe technology and 2,200 tons per day of urea based on Snamprogetti technology, with complete utilities and offsites, including production and export of electric power. The contract covers design, engineering, supply of equipment and materials, construction, commissioning, start up, and training of client personnel.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the country needs about 3.4 million tons of various fertilizers in order to meet the strategic food output target of 43 million tons in rice equivalent within the next 20 years. Vietnam's chemical fertilizer industry can presently meet only 8% of the domestic demand for urea fertilizer and 70% of the demand for phosphate fertilizer. The new Phu My plant is expected to meet about 35% of the internal demand.

The project helps to minimize the import of fertilizer and to promote agricultural production in Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta River Valley. It will also contribute to establishing and developing the Phu My industrial zone. An industrial park including gas powered thermo-electrical power plants is under construction at Phu My. The plants will have a total generating capacity of 3,000MW, fuelled by associated gas from offshore oil and gas fields.

Electric plants include the 1,000MW Phu My 1, built with Japanese loans. The plant has capital investment worth $800 million and will consume 900 million cubic meters of natural gas each year. Other projects needing gas include the 431MW Phu My 2-1 electric plant capitalized at $350 million. The plant will consume 450 million cubic meters of gas per annum. Two other electrical plants, Phu My 2-2 and Phu My 3 started operations in 2000. The 600MW Phu My 2-2 build-operate-transfer (BOT) project, proposed by the World Bank, is worth $350 million.

Meanwhile, The Vietnamese fertilizer industry has made expansion plans that will see The Vietnam Chemicals Corporation, in conjunction with Petro Vietnam, investing a total of $1 billion to build two nitrogenous fertilizer factories with an annual capacity of 800,000 tons per annum each in Vung Tau and Ca Mau. Another $745 million will be spent on building a nitrogenous fertilizer factory in Quang Ninh Province with a capacity of 600,000 tons a year, drawing on coal resources available in the area. Upgrades will also be carried out on super phosphate factories in the provinces of Phu To, Dong Nai, and Ninh Binh.