Three foreign businesses and one local company were selected as Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractors for the Nghi Son oil refinery.

They are the French and Malaysian firm of Technip, Japan 's JGC Corp, Spain’s Tecnicas and the PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation which were also the main contractors that involved in the construction of the Dung Quat Oil Refinery, the first of its kind in the country.

The EPC contract was valued at 5 billion USD out of the 7 billion USD slated for the project which is contributed by the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), Kuwait Petroleum International Ltd., and Idemitsu Kosan Co. and Mitsui Chemicals Inc. of Japan, said PetroVietnam Chairman Dinh La Thang.

The Nghi Son oil refinery, which will be built in the central province of Thanh Hoa in March this year, will be designed to produce 10 million tonnes of products a year in the first stage – 1.5 times higher than the design capacity of the Dung Quat oil refinery. It will become the country’s biggest petrochemical complex.

Once it is operational in 2014, the refinery will annually churn out 2.3 million tonnes of petrol and 3.7 million tonnes of diesel as well as liquefied gas (LPG).

Nghi Son and Dung Quat refineries together are expected to meet 50 percent of the country’s petrol and oil demand./.