Petroleum sector proudly accompanies country’s development in the past 58 years

It has been 58 years since the day Oil Exploration Division, commonly known as Geological Division 36 or 36 Group, was established on November 27th 1961.

From the early days, several generations of petroleum workers have been continuing laying their efforts overcoming numerous difficulties to complete tasks assigned by the Party, President Ho Chi Minh and the people.

The industry insiders have to develop the petroleum sector into an important economic and technical sector of the country with great contributions to nation’s economic development and defense.

The first step is the hardest

Right after the Northern region was completely liberated, President Ho Chi Minh, who had a strategic vision of a genius, set target to build a sound petroleum industry laying ground for further industrialization and economic development.

It can be said that activities of Oil Exploration Division, later 36th Geological Division during the first days produced several valuable documents and information. The materials gave important conclusions on the geological structure and petroleum potential near Hanoi and the An Chau low-lying area. The team is also a "cradle" providing human resources for Vietnam oil and gas industry in the early days.

President Ho Chi Minh visits Bacu Petroleum Industrial Park

On August 9th 1975, the Politburo issued Resolution No. 244-NQ/TW on deployment of petroleum exploration nationwide. This is the Party’s first document on oil and gas exploration. It proved the lucidity, strategic vision, and guideline for the sector’s construction and development.

Immediately after Resolution No. 244-NQ/TW, on August 20th 1975, the National Assembly Standing Committee approved Resolution No. 33-QN/QH/K5 on establishing Vietnam General Department of Oil and Gas.

On September 3rd 1975, based on the resolutions, the Government Council issued Decree No. 170/CP on the establishment of the Vietnam General Department of Oil and Gas, marking a higher development stage. The decision concluded operations of separate organizations under the General Department of Geology, General Department of Chemicals ... The Vietnam General Department of Petroleum and Gas was the first State-owned organization to manage economic and technical branches in the country.

Decree No. 170/CP was extremely important for development of the Vietnam’s young petroleum industry. Since after the decree, oil and gas exploration activities were strongly deployed in the Northern, the Southern, the southern continental shelf. Industry insiders discovered several oil and gas reserves on both mainland and continental shelf.

In order to match the model and operation scale in certain period, Vietnam General Department of Petroleum and Gas was renamed as Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation and now is Vietnam Oil and Gas Group in accordance with Decision No. 199/2006/QD-TTg dated August 28th 2006.

Under the wise leadership, right orientation, encouragement of the Party and the State, deep attention and active support from the ministries, central and local agencies, the petroleum sector overcame all difficulties and challenges to successfully complete all of the assigned tasks.

The sector’s workers strived and stayed united to overcome difficulties and hardships for building and developing the industry in accordance with the faith and aspirations of President Ho Chi Minh.

Staying steady in hard times

The developments of PetroVietnam in particular and the petroleum industry in general have contributed to the country's economic growth. So far, the petroleum sector has extracted nearly 400 million tons of crude oil and 150 billion cubic meters of gas, meeting the demand for producing 170 billion kWh of electricity.

The generated power accounts for about 15% of the total installed electricity capacity and 30% of the total output of the country. Besides, PetroVietnam has produced about 55 million tons of petroleum products, satisfying 33% of national demand.

IT Complex 2, Bach Ho mine

In 2006-2015 period, in addition to the significant successes that PetroVietnam achieved in the field of oil and gas exploration and exploitation, it contributed an average of 20-25% of the total state budget annually or 18-25% of the national gross domestic product.

Especially, PetroVietnam successfully invested and put into operation three national key petroleum projects including Gas - Electricity - Fertilizer Ca Mau, Southeastern Gas - Electricity - Fertilizer Cluster and Dung Quat Oil Refinery.

These projects are operating effectively and greatly contributing to the socio-economic development of the country as a whole and the socio-economic development of the localities where the project operates.

Even in the most difficult and challenging period of the international petroleum and gas industry and PetroVietnam itself, the group and its subsidiaries have been successfully completing the assigned tasks since 2014.

The group’s leaders, Party members, workers and employees working on the mainland, the sea, at home and abroad always unite to overcome all difficulties and challenges. They focused on performing task of exploring, managing, preserving, extracting and promoting the value of precious resources.

In this period of time, PetroVietnam contributed 9-11% of the nation’s total state budget and accounts for 16.5-17% of the total central budget revenue. Particularly, the State budget from crude oil accounts for 5-6% of the total budget revenue and 7-9% of the total central budget revenue. Along with that, the group has contributed 10-13% of the national GDP annually.

Vietsovpetro employees

Until now, PetroVietnam is proud for completing building a complete oil and gas industry system, which includes oil and gas prospection, exploration and production to the development of gas - electricity - processing and petroleum services industry. The system contributed significantly to oil and gas industry, ensuring national energy security.

In particular, the field of oil and gas prospection, exploration and exploitation is the core field. PetroVietnam has been implementing 62 domestic petroleum contracts, covering most of the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone of Vietnam continental shelf.

Its activities of searching, exploring and exploiting oil and gas on the Vietnamese continental shelf contributed to the protection of national sovereignty at sea.

In addition, by the implementation of oil and gas contracts abroad, PetroVietnam became a pioneer in cooperation, international integration and investment abroad. It has deployed 11 oversea oil contracts in 09 countries and territories.

Annually, oil and gas exploration and production contribute about 36% of the total revenue and 60.5% of the total State budget of the Group.

PetroVietnam currently operates five large gas pipeline systems including Cuu Long - Dinh Co - Phu My Gas Pipeline, supplying gas to industrial clusters and households in the Southeast region; Nam Con Son 1 pipeline providing gas to industrial parks households in the Southeast region; Nam Con Son 2 pipeline supplying gas to industrial clusters and households in the Southeast region; the PM3 CAA - Ca Mau pipeline supplies gas to industrial clusters households in the Southwest region and the Ham Rong - Thai Binh pipeline supplying gas for industrial and households in the North.

PetroVietnam’s gas pipelines provide nearly 9-11 billion cubic meters of gas annually, meeting 35% demands of the national electricity output, 70% of the nitrogen output and 70-80% of gas for household consumers.

PV GAS employee

In the field of oil and gas processing, PetroVietnam is currently commercially operating key projects including Dung Quat Oil Refinery, Phu My and Ca Mau fertilizer plants, Nghi Son Petrochemical ...

Annually, oil and gas processing sector contributes about 20% of the total revenue and 13% to the State budget of the group. In particular, total gasoline output from Dung Quat oil refinery and Nghi Son Refinery meets about 80-85% of the domestic demand.

Besides, the Ca Mau and Phu My fertilizer plants with a total capacity of about 1.6 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer per year supply more than 70% of the country's fertilizer demand.
Since 2007, with the establishment of PetroVietnam Power Corporation, the electricity field has become one of the five key production areas of PetroVietnam.

Currently, the group is operating 7 power plants with a total installed capacity of 4,214 MW, accounting for 12% of the country's total power capacity.

PetroVietnam is also the country's largest gas producer with a capacity of 2,700MW. As of end 2018, the group has produced over 170 billion kWh of power. It is the second largest electricity supplier of the country, making an significant contribution to the country’s energy security, defense and socio-economic development.

Today, PetroVietnam has become a prestigious brand in domestic and international market with a level of science and technology equaling to developed countries.

The group with high competitiveness and extensive international integration has a team of scientific and technological and skilled workers. Oil and gas activities speedily developed in all stages.

PetroVietnam continues to build complete and synchronous industries of gas, electricity, refinery, petrochemical, oil and gas processing, fertilizer production, biofuel and fiber plants to increase the proportion of services in oil and gas activities.

BRS employees

In addition to restructuring for higher effectiveness of management and production, PetroVietnam has been focusing on management, financial investment, market, science and technology, training and development of human resources, national defense, security and others.

Being bold against challenges

In 2019, PetroVietnam had to reach production and business targets in the context of instability world which is witnessing trade war, geopolitical conflicts. They negatively impacted the global and domestic economic situation.

Being fully aware of responsibility as an important economic group of the country, PetroVietnam sees that its operating results will directly affect the country’s GDP growth, energy security, defense, and State budget revenues.

With that spirit, by improving the efficiency of governance, administration to implement tasks assigned by the State, the group successfully completed the assigned targets and plans for the first 10 months of 2019.

Most of the group's production targets have exceeded goal. Increasing oil and gas reserves have completed the 2019 goal. Oil and gas prospection, exploration and exploitation activities have been carried out according to the plan.

Electricity production in October was estimated at 2.09 billion kWh, exceeding 9.6% target placed previously. During the past 10 months, the group’s electricity production was seen at 18.55 billion kWh, exceeding 5.1% of the 10-month goal, equaling 85.9% whole-year plan.

Fertilizer production in October was estimated at 144,270 tons, exceeding 1.3% of the October plan while 10-month production was estimated at 1.26 million tons, exceeding 8.1% of the 10-month target and equaling 87.2% of the whole-year plan.

October’s petroleum production was estimated at 0.896 million tons, exceeding 3.9% of the plan for the month. The 10-month production was reported at 9.9 million tons, exceeding 5.5% of the 10-month plan and equal to 87.2% of the whole-year plan.

The group’s financial results in the first 10 months of 2019 including revenue and remittance to the State budget exceeded the 2019 whole-year goal.

In addition to promoting production and business activities, social security is always receiving special attention from leaders and employees of the group. Each worker actively participates in activities to contribute to social charity funds, the poor and people in mountainous, island areas.

It can be said that, in recent years, leaders, workers of the group have been working in solidarity with relentless efforts to have better achievements.

58 years is not a long period of time for building this complete and synchronized petroleum industry system. The Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, which shares the pride when fulfilling President Ho Chi Minh's will, the Party and State strategy, has become an economic symbol accompanying the country's development.

Trúc Lâm

Source: https://petrovietnam.petrotimes.vn/