In a document replying to the HCM City voter’s question about raising the national energy reserve capacity to avoid uncontrollable petroleum price escalations, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said specific criteria for the national petroleum storage infrastructure have been set, shown in the plan approved by the Prime Minister on July 18.

Vietnam strives to ensure infrastructure for national petroleum reserve with the capacity of 500-1,000 cubic meters of petroleum products and 1,000-2,000 tons of crude oil, meeting 15-20 days of net imports in 2021-2030. 

The figures will be 500,000-800,000 cubic meters of petroleum products, 2,000-3,000 tons of crude oil and 25-30 days of net imports for the period after 2030.

At present, the national petroleum reserve is just equal to nine days of net imports, while there is no crude oil reserve.

Raising the national petroleum reserve to ensure national energy security, and meeting the requirements of the national petroleum and gas reserve and supply infrastructure planning for 2021-2030 are a necessity.

“After the Prime Minister approves the plan on raising the national petroleum reserve, MOF will submit to the Prime Minister a strategy on national reserve development by 2030. This will be referred to by ministries and branches when deploying their tasks,” MOF said.

Voters from HCM City have proposed building a separate, independent national energy reserve center. Currently, the national reserve still relies on enterprises’ reserves.

MOF has cited legal documents as saying that MOIT is the agency assigned by the government to control the list of petroleum products and crude oil for national reserve.

In the decision approving the national petroleum and gas storage and supply infrastructure plan in 2021-2030, with a vision towards 2050, the Prime Minister asked MOIT to act as the lead agency in implementing the goals and tasks set out in the planning. These include goals and tasks to build national reserve infrastructure for petroleum products and crude oil.

HCM City’s voters should make a proposal on building a separate independent national energy storage center to MOIT instead of MOF.

MOF said that it would cooperate with MOIT and relevant agencies to implement all the tasks assigned to it by the Prime Minister.

Luong Bang