Vietnam Leader Urges State Oil Company to Halt Slump in Output

Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, known as PetroVietnam, should move urgently to open new fields and halt a drop in output from Southeast Asia’s third-biggest oil producer, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said.

Vietnamese crude oil production totaled 17.3 million tons last year, or about 355,000 barrels a day, down 8 percent from output of 18.8 million tons, or about 386,000 barrels a day in 2005, according to figures provided by PetroVietnam. The decline marked the second consecutive drop in production after a near- tripling of output within a decade.
The falloff results largely from a drop in output from the two-decade-old Russian-Vietnamese operated Bach Ho field. PetroVietnam should find ways to stem the production declines in the past two years, Dung told company officials in the capital Hanoi today.

“Crude oil production reached a plateau and has slowed down,” Dung said. “You should have a reasonable, effective production plan for this precious natural resource, and at the same time, you also should have an urgent plan to bring new fields into a production phase to cover Bach Ho’s decline.”

Bach Ho’s output last year slumped 8 percent to 9.15 million tons, or about 191,000 barrels a day, from 9.99 million tons, or about 208,000 barrels a day, in 2005, according to figures from Vietsovpetro, which operates the field.

“Bach Ho’s output will decrease every year, but the rate of the decrease will depend on our investment in the field,” PetroVietnam Chief Executive Tran Ngoc Canh said in an interview today. “It can decline more quickly if we don’t have suitable technical solutions.”

Bloomberg