This is the information given at the meeting among the mission of Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) headed by Mr. Tran Sy Thanh, a member of the Party Central Committee, Vice Chairman of the Central Economic Commission, cum Party Secretary and Chairman of the Member’s Council of PVN; Thanh Hoa Provincial Standing Committee and NSRP on 23 February 2018.

Thanh Hoa’s representatives in the meeting included: Mr. Trinh Van Chien, a member of the Party Central Committee, Provincial Party Secretary cum Chairman of the Provincial People’s Council; Mr. Do Trong Hung, Standing Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee cum Head of the Delegation of National Assembly deputies of Thanh Hoa province; Mr. Nguyen Dinh Xung, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee cum Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee; Mr. Do Minh Tuan, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, and other members of Standing Committees of Provincial People’s Council and Provincial People’s Committee, and related departments and agencies.

Speaking at the meeting with the Provincial Standing Committee, Mr. Tran Sy Thanh, Vice Chairman of the Central Economic Commission, Chairman of the Member’s Council of PVN expressed the sincere gratitude to the local government and people of Thanh Hoa province over the years for the kind support and facilitation of the PVN and NSRP’s project implementation. In 2017, the leaders and staff of oil and gas sector overcame challenges to successfully accomplish political tasks to exceed their production targets, which resulted in their contribution of approx.100 thousand billion Vietnamese dong to the state budget. In 2018, oil refinery and petrochemical development has still been the priority of oil and gas sector in the national strategic vision, while NSRP is particularly crucial to PVN, to Vietnam and Thanh Hoa province. Therefore, the Chairman of PVN looked forward to the continued special attention from Thanh Hoa province, particularly in terms of the security and social orders, stable electricity and water supply, and the companion with the project owner to meet the proposed schedule.

Mr. Tran Sy Thanh shared the high appreciation and attention of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) to the infrastructure network and competitive cost advantages in Nghi Son economic zone, and the strong commitment of Thanh Hoa provincial leaders, as well as the KPC’s expectations of their continued investment in Thanh Hoa province. He advised Thanh Hoa province to have a good vision to attract and secure investors, and help them with a sound investment strategy. The Chairman of PVN believed that Thanh Hoa province would achieve remarkable breakthrough once the large-scale industrial projects based in the province commence their operations.

In this connection, Mr. Trinh Van Chien, Thanh Hoa Provincial Party Secretary, Chairman of the Provincial People’s Council conveyed the sincere thanks to PVN’s leaders for the meeting in Thanh Hoa province in the first working days after the Vietnamese traditional lunar new year holidays, and confirmed the provincial priority given to the NSRP, which brings a remarkable impact to the provincial socio-economic development. Despite of the challenges during the project implementation process, Thanh Hoa province made its efforts to accompany with the investor and remove the arising obstacles and difficulties to meet the proposed schedule. It’s now the crunch time for the project, Thanh Hoa province would continue to keep company with NSRP for the timely commercial operations as planned. In addition, the province committed to doing its assignments even better for realization of the phase 2 of the project.

After the meeting, Mr. Tran Sy Thanh visited NSRP site and expressed the gratitude and compliments to all the specialists, engineers and workers of NSRP for not taking the national holidays during lunar new year festival to secure the progress, quality and safety of the project.

As stated in the report of NSRP, all technical and mechanical issues of the project have been secured. The project implementation workload is proved to be more than three times greater than in Dung Quat oil refinery, while some new modern technology have been firstly applied in Vietnam, particularly the waste treatment system. NSRP now have completed absolutely safely 4,000 procedures and guidance of the commissioning preparation period within 10 million working hours. It is expected to commence the commissioning on 28 February 2018, the production of paraxylene in April, and of petrol and gas in the beginning of May 2018.

Leaders of NSRP highly appreciated and thanked the leaders of Thanh Hoa province for the kind support during the project implementation process, from site clearance, electricity and water supply to security maintenance as the commitments of the Government of Vietnam, and assumed that the companion, responsibilities and drastic actions of Thanh Hoa provincial leaders were the main factors to the current project success. The consistent objective of the co-ventures in this project is to actively contribute to the national energy security, the economic development, and oil and gas development future of Vietnam. Therefore, NSRP committed to making its efforts to meet the operation schedule, secure the project safety, quality, efficiency and close collaborations to maximize the benefits for co-ventures.

Being pleased with the NSRP project progress, Mr. Tran Sy Thanh, Vice Chairman of the Central Economic Commission, Chairman of the Member’s Council of PVN affirmed again the role and importance of NSRP to the national oil and gas development and to Thanh Hoa economy. He emphasized that this project is the model for the cooperation relationship among Vietnam, Japan and Kuwait and realizes the oil and gas development cooperation strategy of three countries, which targets at the rapid growth of this sector and its greater contribution to each national economic development.

The Chairman of PVN highly appreciated the cooperation and shared responsibilities among NSRP co-ventures and Thanh Hoa province to remove arising obstacles and challenges during project implementation process. He also committed to providing the most favorable conditions for the project to meet the operation schedule and to penetrate the market with their first petrol and gas products in the beginning of May, 2018.

Some images at the meeting