Dinh Vu polyester plant to resume operations on March 20

Resuming Dinh Vu polyester plant may signal the reopening PVTex's remaining workshops

The operating duration of the DTY workshop will be six months, during which PetroVietnam Petrochemical and Textile Fiber JSC (PVTex), the plant’s operator, will select a partner to co-operate to run the plant.

In order to operate the plant smoothly, PVTex asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade and PetroVietnam to consider a number of its proposals. Accordingly, PVTex wants to receive paraxylene (PX) manufactured by Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical (NSRP) complex from PetroVietnam and receive 50 per cent of the polypropylene manufactured by Binh Son Refinery (BSR). At the same time, PVTex requested preferential policies that NSRP and BSR applied to partners in PX and polypropylene sales contracts.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Hoang Quoc Vuong stated that PVTex’s proposals are legitimate, thus MoIT will mention them at the meeting of the Government Steering Committee on dealing with 12 loss-making projects.

However, according to Dao Van Ngoc, chairman of the Board of Directors of PVTex, the company has built long-term plans to deal with the plant and in April it will submit them to the authorities to select the optimal plan.

The first alternative offered by PVTex is to take the plants operation in its own hands. The second alternative is co-operating with either an international or a domestic partner, while the third plan is either to sell the plant or to declare bankruptcy for the plant.

The Dinh Vu polyster plant came into commercial operation in May 2014 with a capacity of 236 tonnes of polyester fibre and yarn per day, equalling 48 per cent of its designed capacity. However, the factory had to suspend operations numerous times due to unsold products piling up. It is one of the 12 projects under MoIT incurring trillion-dong losses.

Previously, in September 2017, Reliance Industry Company from India decided to co-operate with PetroVietnam to restart the plant.

Accordingly, Reliance will provide personnel for maintenance, material supply, and sales operations, among others. PetroVietnam proposed the Indian partner to buy PVTex’s stakes, but no official information is forthcoming yet.

Besides, PVTex also worked with domestic partners to discuss plans to raise capital to maintain the operation of the plant, while simultaneously collaborating with experts to evaluate the quality of the DTY manufacturing lines.