The Vietnam Gas Corporation, PV Gas, signed with contractors a deal worth 441.57 million USD for engineering, procurement and construction of a gas processing plant in Ho Chi Minh City on July 16.

The plant will be built close to another gas processing plant in the oil-rich southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau to feed two major residential quarters in HCM City and an industrial zone in neighbouring Dong Nai province.

Vu Van Thuan, General Director of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Construction and Assembly Joint-stock Corporation (PVX) - a project co-contractor, said the project, including gas tanks and pipelines, is an important part in the Nam Con Con gas pipeline project No. 2.

The plant, with a design capacity of 20 million cu. m. per day and night, will receive natural gas from the Nam Con Son basin within Vietnam ’s southern continental shelf through an off-shore pipeline to produce condensate, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and ethanol. Condensate will be transported to the Phu My distribution station in HCM City through an onshore pipeline.

Along with the plant, contractors, including the Oil and Gas Metal Structuring and Assembly Joint-stock Company, will also build pipeline systems to carry LPG, condensate and ethanol.

The project is expected to help pump between 1.5 billion cu. m. of natural gas annually from the Nam Con Son basin by 2013. The figures are likely to reach 2.8 billion cu. m. by 2014 and 3.09 billion cu. m. by 2017 till 2024.

Experts put the Nam Con Son reserves at some 590 million cu. m. of oil equivalent./.