Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade (MoIT) Nguyen Hong Dien has visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to seek direct import sources of crude oil, gasoline, and petrochemical products direct import.

Vietnam's Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien (R) and UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei in Abu Dhabi on Mar 28. Photos: MOIT

The Vietnamese official expected direct trading between the two nations’ companies without the third party during his visit paid to UAE at the end of March accompanied by oil companies namely Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex), PetroVietnam Oil Corporation (PVOIL), and Binh Son Refinering and Petrochemical JSC (BSR).

In the meeting with the UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, Dien highlighted Vietnam’s willingness to cooperate with the Middle East nation in the oil extraction and oil products trading. 

He said Vietnam wanted a long-term partnership with the UAE in oil import as the Southeast Asian country is home to two oil refineries and the third is under construction plan. Vietnam is one of the regional manufacturing hubs so demand for energy is on the rise.

At the same time, he called on the UAE to examine investment opportunities in building energy infrastructure in Vietnam, support and share experiences in developing clean energy, producing green hydrogen and green ammonia to support Vietnam’s low-carbon journey signed at COP26.

For his part, Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei said he totally supported the cooperation and asked the authorities to proceed with the partnership in which Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), a diversified and integrated group of energy companies, will be responsible for connecting Vietnamese partners.

Sharing the same idea, Khaled Salmeen, Executive Director of Downstream Industry, Marketing and Trading (DM&T) at ADNOC expected direct trading with Vietnamese importers would supply a wide range of products namely crude oil, gasoline, and petroleum products.

On this occasion, Dien expressed wish that Vietnamese businesses would join UAE oil services projects in the third country.

To support the trading, the two sides planned to sign a trade agreement and renew a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on industry following the one signed in 2019.

Since October 2021, demand for petroleum products in Vietnam has been on the rise following a spike in fuel prices in line with global demand and price hikes.

The price hikes are attributed to the Russia-Ukraine armed conflicts, no increasing supply by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and growing domestic demand resulted from the reopening of the economy after the country adopted the approach of flexibly living with the virus since October last year.  

Officials of the two sides at the meeting.