The Vietnam Oil and Gas Group ( PetroVietnam) is investing 187.5 million U.S. dollars in manufacturing polypropylene, a kind of plastic noted for its light weight, in Dung Quat Industrial Zone, the country's first oil petrochemical refinery complex.

Capitalized at 3 trillion Vietnamese dong (187.5 million dollars), a plant with annual capacity of 150,000 tons of polypropylene used for making plastic packaging items, home utensils and automobile parts, is scheduled to become operational in 2009, according to the management board of Dung Quat Industrial Zone in central Quang Ngai province on Wednesday.

The main material for polypropylene production is propylene which will be churned out by the Dung Quat oil refinery being invested by PetroVietnam. Construction of the polypropylene plant will start in the third quarter of this year.

The construction of the Dung Quat oil refinery, the first of its kind in Vietnam, started in the industrial zone in November 2005.

Capitalized at 2.5 billion dollars and expected to become operational in late 2008 or early 2009, the oil refinery with an annual refining capacity of 6.5 million tons of crude oil is of significance in ensuring energy for the country, which is a crude oil exporter, but petroleum product importer, said the management board.

Source: Xinhua