KPI, Japan’s Idemitsu to open Vietnam’s 1st service station

TOKYO: State-run Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) and Japan’s leading refiner Idemitsu Kosan Company are set to jointly begin operating a service station business in Vietnam next Thursday, Idemitsu said in a press release yesterday. KPI and Idemitsu will run the business in the capital Hanoi through Idemitsu Q8 Petroleum, their 50-50 joint venture, the Tokyo-based firm said, adding that it will be Vietnam’s first wholly foreignowned service station.

“This service station will differentiate itself from local competitors through proactively adopting and firmly establishing operations expertise based on Idemitsu’s experiences operating service stations in Japan and KPI’s experiences operating service stations under the Q8 brand in Europe,” it said.

The service station is located inside Hanoi’s Thang Long Industrial Park, home to the facilities of numerous Japanese firms, according to the press release. “Starting with this service station, Idemitsu Q8 Petroleum first will build a sales channel by opening a network of service stations concentrated on the area,” said Idemitsu.

The two companies are major investors in the Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC, which is constructing Vietnam’s second oil refinery to be operational in 2017. The 200,000-barrel-per-day Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical Project is 35.1 percent evenly owned by KPI and Idemitsu, 25.1 percent by state-owned PetroVietnam and 4.7 percent by Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals Inc. KPI’s parent company Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) will supply all the feedstock for the facility, which will also include petrochemical units, energy facilities, a pipeline and storage systems, along with an information management system.

Crude exports

In other news, Kuwait’s crude oil exports to Japan declined 2.3 percent in August from a year earlier to 6.18 million barrels, or 199,000 barrels per day (bpd), for the first fall in four months, government data showed. But Kuwait overtook Qatar to become Japan’s thirdbiggest oil provider, supplying 6.2 percent of the Asian nation’s total crude imports, the Japanese Natural Resources and Energy Agency said in a preliminary report.

Japan’s overall imports of crude oil edged down 0.1 percent yearon-year to 3.21 million bpd for the first decline in two months. Shipments from the Middle East accounted for 87.8 percent of the total, up 3.1 percentage points from the year before.

Saudi Arabia remained Japan’s number one oil supplier, with imports from the kingdom jumping 38.4 percent from a year earlier to 1.35 million bpd, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 879,000 bpd, up 7.4 percent. Qatar ranked fourth and Russia fifth, respectively. Japan is the world’s-third biggest oil consumer after the US and China, importing virtually all its fossil fuels. —KUNA