HANOI—Vietnam will abolish an import tax on crude oil from November, the government said on Tuesday, as the Southeast Asian country becomes more reliant on imported crude for its refineries.
The country has required more imported crude to offset slowing domestic output as its reserves decline at existing fields and because of China’s increasingly assertive stance in the region, which is hampering offshore exploration.
The 5 percent import tax will be abolished from Nov. 1, the Vietnamese government said on an official website.
Vietnam has two operational oil refineries with combined processing capacity of 330,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical bought 1 million barrels of Bonny Light crude in its first import of Nigerian crude last month.
Vietnam’s crude oil imports for the January-August period more than doubled from a year earlier to 5.57 million tonnes as domestic oil output fell by 6.9 percent, official data shows.
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