PetroVietnam registers rosy performance in first month of 2020

PetroVietnam exceeded its oil and gas production plan by 8.5 per cent in January 2020

This is the fifth year leading state-owned conglomerate PetroVietnam has implemented the Vietnam Oil and Gas Industry Development Strategy to 2025 with orientations to 2035.

Reaching the 2020 targets will contribute to the achievement of the objectives and tasks of the five-year plan (2016-2020), together with helping the whole country overcome difficulties and challenges to accelerate economic development in parallel with maintaining macroeconomic stability.

Being aware of this, the group is committed to fulfilling and exceeding the plan right from the first month of the year. Although January 2020 featured the long holiday of the Lunar New Year (Tet), all of PetroVietnam’s activities had been maintained and were conducted with business as usual.

It is forecast that the country and the world in February and the coming time will face many difficulties on account of market uncertainties, epidemics, and natural disasters, along with unpredictable world oil prices.

These factors adversely affect the business and production plans of the group as well as the domestic and world economy. In this situation, PetroVietnam’s top leaders have instructed all member units to proactively respond to market developments to curtail the negative impacts of the new coronavirus outbreak (nCoV), minimise damage as well as take advantage of opportunities to plan production and market access in a timely and reasonable manner.

In the first month of 2020, the group exceeded its oil and gas production plan by 8.5 per cent and its fertiliser production plan by 2.5 per cent (147,300 tonnes).

As for financial targets, PetroVietnam’s total revenue was estimated at VND66.3 trillion ($2.88 billion) in January, exceeding the monthly plan by 16.2 per cent.

Also in January, PetroVietnam and its members contributed VND8.3 trillion ($360.7 million) to state coffers, exceeding the monthly plan by 17.1 per cent. Amid the nCoV epidemic, PetroVietnam’s member unit Vietnam Petrochemical and Fiber JSC (VNPOLY) had produced and sold five tonnes of raw materials (DTY) to the market for producing medical masks.

Its other member unit Vietnam Petroleum Institute (VPI) has successfully produced antibacterial dry hand sanitizer (germicidal gel, VPI-gel). The product has been tested and recognised by the Pasteur Institute for its ability to quickly and effectively destroy up to 99.99 per cent of common microorganisms.

To minimise losses from the epidemic, particularly the decline of purchasing power in the market, and in order to reach production and business plans for February and the following months, PetroVietnam and its subsidiaries are devising measures to take advantage of the arising opportunities, reduce costs (specifically management, production, and sales costs) to maximise profit.

It is also important to propose short- and medium-term solutions (regarding production plans, products, costs, investments) to cope with the negative impacts and seize opportunities from the impacts of the epidemic; taking the initiative in approaching previously undiscovered markets to utilise competitive advantages, and to actively share information and strengthen co-operation between members of the group and other businesses across other sectors and all over the country.