More heavyweights line up for BSR

January 05, 2018 | 14:02

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The race to gain a stake in Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (BSR), the operator of Dung Quat Refinery, has become more aggressive with the joining of two heavyweights Vitol Asian Pte. and SNT Group.

BSR is in the cross-hairs of the world's top oil companies

At the roadshow to introduce investment opportunity in BSR organised on January 5 in Hanoi, Nguyen Thanh Phuong, representative of US-based SNT Group in Vietnam, said that SNT decided to buy a 49 per cent stake in BSR after considering the opportunities and challenges.

Phuong stated that SNT sees numerous opportunities to develop sectors that have high potential but have yet to be exploited, including the petrochemical sector.

Notably, the petrochemical production and trading sector currently makes up 10 per cent of BSR’s total profit, while the demand for petrochemicals in Vietnam is still very large. SNT believes it would have a way to increase this sector’s contribution to BSR’s profit to 40 per cent.

Besides, BSR could exploit more potential sectors thanks to the experience and technology of SNT.

At the same day, Darrell Ec, representative of Vitol Asian Pte., said that the group is eyeing the petrochemical market in Vietnam and is especially interested in becoming the strategic investor of BSR.

Previously, BSR worked with two of the interested investors, namely World Petro from the US and Macron Petro Petroleum from Africa.

Notably, Macron Petro Petroleum wants to join the refinery operator with a holding rate between 10-40 per cent. World Petro has ambitions to own up to 49 per cent in the refinery.

In additon, at the signing ceremony of a co-operation agreement between Petrolimex and BSR on August 10 last year, Petrolimex chairman Bui Ngoc Bao announced that Petrolimex plans to purchase the entire offered share volume to become the strategic partner of BSR.

Along with the above heavyweights, Russia’s top energy firms Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, Thailand’s PTT, and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. submitted bids for a minority stake in the Vietnamese refinery.

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