Some U.S. petroleum companies are making inroads in Viet Nam despite the U.S. embargo on trade with that country.
Unocal Corp. in May shipped 18,000 tons of urea to Viet Nam from its fertilizer plant at Kenai, Alas., 75 miles southwest of Anchorage.
The shipment was Unocal's first since 1974 to Viet Nam, which the company believes holds promise as a major market for urea. Fertilizer, food, and humanitarian goods are exempt from the U.S. embargo. The urea is critical for Vietnamese rice cultivation, which expanded sharply in recent years as free market economic principles have gained a foothold in Viet Nam.
The Kenai plant is fed by about 60 MMcfd of natural gas from Kenai field. It produces as much as 1,500 tons/day of ammonia, including 900 tons/day that is sent to liquid storage to await transport by barge to the Lower 48 and 600 tons/day for the plant's urea unit.
The ammonia plant is owned 100% by Unocal. The urea plant is a 50-50 venture with Japan-Gas Chemical Co. Inc., Tokyo. The complex markets largely to the U.S. Pacific Northwest and the Far East.
The stage was set in 1969 for sale of natural gas and derivatives from Cook Inlet basin reserves that had no market in Alaska. Unocal subsidiary Collier Carbon & Chemical Corp. dedicated the $50 million ammonia/urea complex at Kenai that year.
Also in 1969, Phillips Petroleum Co. and Marathon Oil Co. dedicated the Western Hemisphere's first liquefied natural gas export project, the 140 MMcfd LNG complex at Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula. The project enabled development to proceed in North Cook Inlet gas field, a 1962 offshore discovery by a forerunner of Amoco Production Co. and incorporated Marathon's share of reserves in Kenai gas field.
Kenai to date has produced 2.1 tcf of gas and in April averaged 99.2 MMcfd.
North Cook Inlet to date has produced 1.6 tcf and in April averaged 116.7 MMcfd.
Copyright 1993 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
