Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam could attract investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) and gain an early foothold in a Southeast Asian CCS services market valued at up to 40 billion USD if it quickly finalises the policies under its revised Petroleum Law.
Vietnam trails regional peers
Bui Dao Thai Truong, CEO of Roland Berger Vietnam, said CCS services are an emerging sector, but Vietnam is behind other Southeast Asian countries in competing for it.
He said Vietnam’s depleted oil and gas fields give it a notable edge as potential sites for carbon capture, utilisation and storage projects. The revised Petroleum Law lays the groundwork needed to tap that potential and narrow the gap with regional rivals.
Ha Van Tuan, Standing Vice Chairman of the Hanoi Petroleum Association, said CCS is still a relatively new field, both in Vietnam and worldwide. The revised law now includes CCS regulations, but they remain a general framework, with many specifics yet to be worked out.
Deploying the technology will require coordinated action on legal, technical, financial and environmental issues, he said.
Tran Quoc Viet, former President of the Petrovietnam Exploration Production Corporation (PVEP), a member of the Vietnam National Industry-Energy Group (Petrovietnam), said regulators must first decide whether CCS is a commercial activity for companies or a task requiring State involvement and support.
CCS involves far more than capturing carbon dioxide at factories and shipping it to storage sites. Companies must invest in systems and equipment for collection, transport, injection, storage and monitoring. Given the scale of that spending, firms taking on CCS projects under current conditions could face substantial risks, he said.
The Vietnam Petroleum Institute, a Petrovietnam unit, said the country has ample CO₂ storage potential in depleted oil and gas fields, deep saline aquifers and deep coal seams, particularly in the Song Hong basin and the Cuu Long-Nam Con Son basin areas.
Few countries in the region can match that. Depleted fields with comprehensive geological data and reservoir models could sharply cut geological risk and investment costs for CCS projects.
Policies under the law taking shape
The National Assembly passed the revised Petroleum Law on August 23, 2026, the first version to explicitly cover CCS activities linked to oil and gas operations.
On September 25, the Prime Minister issued a decision on the plan for enforcing the law. It tasks the Ministry of Industry and Trade with drafting a decree on certain measures and submitting it to the Government in December.
Compared with Decree 45/2023/ND-CP dated July 1, 2023, which detailed certain articles of the 2022 Petroleum Law, the draft decree adds eight articles, 70 through 77. The new articles cover assessing CO₂ storage potential, delivering CCS under petroleum contracts, planning and monitoring, facility decommissioning, and relevant financial mechanisms.
Notably, Article 76 classifies CCS service project costs as petroleum operating costs eligible for recovery under Clause 2, Article 51 of the Petroleum Law.
Those costs will be recovered through the mechanism set in the existing petroleum contract, under Article 23 of the revised law, alongside other operating costs. Contractors must account for CCS costs separately for audit and settlement purposes.
On revenue, Clause 2, Article 77 allows proceeds from carbon credit sales to offset CCS operating costs, calculated on the amount above the cost recovery level already set in the petroleum contract./.
