Lots of Oil; No Refineries

Vietnam has quite a lot of crude oil, as it is the world’s 34th largest producer of this nonrenewable natural resource. Unfortunately, the country has to export all of its crude oil, because it does not have any refinery facilities. Therefore, Vietnam has to import refined oil products from other countries.

The country plans to change this situation in the future. There are a few oil refineries currently under construction. The building of the first one (located in the central region of Quang Ngai) began in November, 2005, and will hopefully be ready for use in 2008.

Recently, the oil industry has caused some problems on the northern coast, in the form of an oil spill (for details, please see “Oil Spill” on the Current Event page).