Gas output in Vietnam could triple within 8 years

Vietnam could receive a significant boost to its natural gas supplies after signing 2 agreements during the APEC Summit to buy gas at home and from Indonesia.

PetroVietnam agreed to buy gas from the Tuna Block in Indonesia’s north Natuna Sea and also signed up to take gas from the Vietnam-Russia joint venture Vietsovpetro’s Rong field off Vietnam’s shore.

The deals could give gas field development across Southeast Asia a much-needed push after a slump in oil and gas prices in 2014 slowed investments.

A 3rd project – Exxon Mobil’s Ca Voi Xanh, or «Blue Whale» – is also moving ahead, government officials said, meaning Vietnam’s gas output could triple within 8 years.

«The supply would be used to meet growing power and industrial demand in southern and northern Vietnam as well as new power demand in central Vietnam», said Andrew Harwood, Research Director of Asia Pacific upstream at ‎Wood Mackenzie.

Vietnam’s gas production could surge to about 2,400 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) in 2025, up from the current 800 mmscfd, when other new supplies and Blue Whale come online, Harwood added.

Located to its east, Blue Whale is Vietnam’s biggest gas project, with an estimated 150 billion cu m in reserves.

Under project plans, the gas would flow through an 80-km pipeline to be processed near Da Nang and then supplied to four proposed power plants in Vietnam’s central provinces, Mallon said.

PetroVietnam also signed a sales and purchase contract with Zarubezhneft to extract natural gas from the northeastern part of the Rong field.

Vietsovpetro currently operates the offshore Rong field, or Block 09-1, which has so far only produced oil.

The company also signed a MoU with the UK Premier Oil to buy gas from the Tuna Block, Indonesian oil and gas upstream regulator SKK Migas said last week.