Viet Nam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has recently announced a list of eligible exporters, importers and distributors of gas.

Under the announcement, 51 enterprises are eligible to distribute gas and 23 traders are qualified to export and import gas in Viet Nam according to Decree No 19/2016/ND-CP on regulations of gas business and requirements for gas trading in Viet Nam.

The list of 23 qualified traders for gas import and export includes some large companies in the gas industry, such as Petrovietnam Northern Gas Joint Stock Company, Tran Hong Quan Trading Company Limited, Hai Linh Company Limited, Petrovietnam Gas Corporation One Member Company Limited and Totalgaz Viet Nam Company Limited.

Four traders are eligible to export and import liquefied gas, including Tannan Viet Nam Company Limited, Birz Viet Nam Company Limited, Samsung Electronics Viet Nam Thai Nguyen Company Limited.

In particular, PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation (PV Gas) is on the list of eligible traders producing and processing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) that can exercise the right to export and import LPG.

MoIT issued Decree No 19/2016/ND-CP on March 22, 2016 stipulating that enterprises trading in gas must meet certain conditions, such as every gas importer/exporter must own a certain quantity of LPG bottles (excluding mini-sized LPG bottles) that are eligible to be used on the market with total capacity of at least 3.93 million litres or every bottled LPG distributor must own LPG bottles (excluding mini-sized LPG bottles) that are eligible to be used on the market with total capacity of at least 2.62 million litres.

In addition, the total capacity of LPG tanks has been reduced to 300cu.m. (formerly 800m3) for bottled LPG distributors.

Prior to that, more than 40 small gas trading companies petitioned against the decree, saying they were being pushed into bankruptcy and were forced to quit the market because of this regulation. — VNS