Vietnam approves Petrovietnam’sUS$1.27 bn investment to build gas pipeline

The government of Vietnam has approved a US$1.27 billion investment by state-owned Petrovietnam and its foreign partners for the construction of a gas pipeline in southern Vietnam, according to the country’s Foreign Investment Agency (FIA).

The Block B-O Mon project pipeline will be built in Kien Giang province and is expected to be operational by the second quarter of 2020. The pipeline will have a total length of 431km with design capacity of 20.3million cubic meters per day (7.4 billion cubic meters per year). It will supply gas to power plants in Kien Giang and Can Tho provinces.

The Vietnamese government granted the license on April 20 to a joint venture between PV Gas, a subsidiary of Petrovietnam, and “a Japanese investor”, FIA said. Petrovietnam’s website listed the pipeline project partners as itself, subsidiary PV Gas, Japan’s Mitsui Oil Exploration, and Thai PTTEP.

Block B-O Mon project consists of Block B, 48/95 & 52/97 field development project and the Block B–O Mon gas pipeline project. The project was kicked off in April 2016 by then prime minister Nguyen Tan Dzung.

Block B field development project has a total investment of US$6.8billion for 20 years. Partners in the project are PetroVietnam (42.896%), its upstream subsidiary PVEP (26.788%), Mitsui Oil Exploration (22.575%), and PTTEP (7.741%).