Vietnam’s fourth-largest oilfield, the Su Tu Vang (Yellow Lion) oilfield, situated on lot 15-1 on a continental shelf off the central province of Binh Thuan, has officially commenced production.

Vu Ngoc An, General Director of the Cuu Long Joint Operating Company (CL JOC), told a press briefing in Hanoi on Nov. 19 that in the month since the field’s first oil well began pumping on Oct. 14, the company has put another four wells into use.
An said that, once the sixth well in the Su Tu Vang oilfield is operational, his company expects to double its crude oil output to 100,000 barrels per day.
As a result, the total output for this year is expected to hit 3 million tonnes, 10 percent higher than planned. The CL JOC, the first company of its kind in Vietnam, was established under an agreement regarding oil exploitation on Lot 15-1, signed on Sept. 16, 1998 by the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam)’s Exploration and Production Corporation (PVEP), the UK’s ConocoPhillips, the Republic of Korea’s National Oil and Gas Corporation and SK Company, and Monaco’s Geopetrol Company.
The company now operates four oilfields, including Su Tu Den (Black Lion), which commenced operations in Oct. 2003. Su Tu Trang (White Lion) and Su Tu Nau (Brown Lion) are scheduled to begin production in next few years.
The CL JOC has been one of the nation’s top two companies in crude oil output and export since 2003, second only to the Vietnam-Russia Oil and Gas Joint Venture (Vietsovpetro).