Vietsovpetro To Operate New Tanker

The Vietnam-Russia oil and gas joint venture, Vietsovpetro, plans to operate a new tanker from next week, bringing their crude transportation fleet to four, officials said.

It was reported that the new tanker was built by a Japanese firm at a cost of $90 million and had a capacity of 150,000 tons of crude (1.1 million barrels). It will reportedly become operational from October 10.

Vietsovpetro officials have said Ba Vi was taken into dry dock for repair after bad weather damaged its single mooring buoy in mid-February, cutting by more than half the output of crude oil and gas from the Bach Ho field.

The vessel resumed operations in April. An industry source said that at the time that the damage was not to the mooring buoy but to a crude oil tank.