Vietnam to pump more oil

Vietnam to pump more oil

HANOI (DPA): Vietnam, the fourth largest oil exporter in Southeast Asia, aims to extract 17 million tons of crude oil in 2000, an increase of 2 million tons over last year, official media reported Wednesday.

State oil monopoly PetroVietnam's planned expansion, which includes increasing pumping capacity at existing offshore fields and tapping into new wells, is set to boost the communist-ruled nation's exports, which are routinely led by strong sales of crude.

Last year Vietnam exported nearly all of its 15 million tons of extracted crude, earning the state and its foreign partners over $2 billion, according to Vietnam News.

That was a 62.3 percent increase on 1998 earnings and made up 17 percent of the country's total export turnover.

Hanoi has earned more than $10 billion from its exports of crude since the late 1970s when it first entered offshore oil partnerships with the Soviet Union.

About 90 per cent of exports still come from VietSovPetro, the partnership between PetroVietnam and Russia's state-owned Zarubezhneft.