preview

Vietnam Gas Industry

Decent Essays

THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
CENTER FOR NORTHEAST ASIAN POLICY STUDIES

POLICY SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INITIAL
DEVELOPMENT OF VIETNAM’S GAS INDUSTRY

Hai Tien Le
CNAPS Visiting Fellow, Vietnam, Spring 2010
Director, Research Centre for Petroleum Economics and Management
Vietnam Petroleum Institute

September 2012

THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington D.C. 20036-2188
Tel: (202)797-6000 Fax: (202)797-2485 http://www.brookings.edu Abbreviations

BCM
BTU
Government
LNG
LPG
MOIT
Mtoe
MW
MBBTU
MMBTU
MMCM
PVN
PVEP
PVGas
SCM
USD / US$
TCM
VND

Billion cubic meters
British thermal unit
Government of Vietnam
Liquefied natural gas
Liquefied petroleum gas
Ministry of Industry and …show more content…

These principles are borrowed from “An Introduction to the Gas Sector,” The World Bank, Vietnam Gas
Sector Mission, January 7-8, 2009, page 84.

2

Policy Suggestions for Vietnam’s Gas Industry
Hai Tien Le
CNAPS Visiting Fellow Working Paper

3

Vietnam’s gas policy should address and looks at a number of possible solutions. Finally, the paper concludes with some overall comments regarding gas policy in Vietnam.

II. Overview of Vietnam’s gas industry
Natural gas is a critical source of energy for Vietnam, and it plays an important role in the nation’s energy economy. BMI reports that natural gas is the second biggest primary energy provider, accounting for 18 percent of the nation’s energy, followed by coal and hydroelectric power. It is expected that the use of gas will increase to account for 31 percent of Vietnam’s primary energy demand, and oil demand will be down to 38 percent. 3
Vietnam’s natural gas industry has developed a long way from its initial small onshore field located in Thai Binh province, south of Haiphong, in the 1970s. Today there are three major reserve basins located in southern Vietnam – Cuu Long, Nam Con Son, and
Malay-Tho Chu – which supply the power generation and fertilizer projects currently under operation.
The modern natural gas industry was born in 1995, with the production of associated gas from the Bach Ho oil field to the Ba Ria Power Plant, which had an

Get Access