Business Vietnam’s oil giant PVN in hot water for series of loss-making offshore investments Vietnamese teacher suspended again, two months after resuming job from ‘silent mode’ scandal

Nearly a dozen overseas projects invested in by state-owned Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) and its oil exploration subsidiary PVEP are either loss-making or at risk of incurring losses worth billions of U.S. dollars, a recent report compiled and released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, shows. PVN, wholly owned by the central government, is one of Vietnam’s largest oil producers, with activities covering all operations from oil and gas exploration and production to storage, processing, transportation, distribution and services. The corporation is one of the country’s pioneers in making investments in oil and gas projects overseas, with 13 offshore projects in South America, Europe, Africa, Western Asia, and Southeast Asia. Eleven out of the 13 investments are currently in the red or at risk of incurring losses, according to the trade ministry’s report. PVN’s largest offshore investment, made via its subsidiary PVEP, fully known as PetroVietnam Exploration and Production Corporation, is in the ‘Junin 2’ heavy oil extraction project in Venezuela. Between 2010 and 2015, PVEP poured approximately US$1.82 billion into the project as part of a joint investment with the state-run Venezuelan Petroleum Corp (CVP). Junin 2 was expected to extract 200,000 barrels of crude oil daily after the second phase of investment. In December 2013, the then-prime minister ordered that PVEP halt the investment until further review after seeing little progress on the mega-project. The Corruption, Economic and Trafficking Crimes Department under the Ministry of Public Security has sent an official dispatch to PVN requesting the submission of… [Read full story]