Phung Dinh Thuc

President and CEO, Petrovietnam

The new president of Vietnam's state oil monopoly is increasingly looking overseas to shore up the country's reserves. Phung Dinh Thuc is a Soviet-trained engineer with a long career at Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) and its subsidiaries, and became the company's President on 1 July 2009. Thuc studied oil and gas production at the Bacu Petrochemical Academy in the Soviet Union in 1977 and later earned his doctorate in Marine Petroleum Technology there in 2000.

Though Vietnam is projected to remain a net crude exporter, Thuc faces several challenges at the helm of the state oil company. Low refining capacity makes Vietnam heavily dependent on imports of refined products; its first refinery opened in February. In early October, Petróleos de Venezuela abruptly pulled out of a joint venture to build a new refinery.

Meanwhile, output at the Bach Ho offshore field - source of half the country's reserves - is declining. Its assets in Algeria's blocks 433a and 416b, with partners Sonatrach and Thai PTT Exploitation and Production, have boasted discoveries in recent years. Petrovietnam's board members expect Thuc to take advantage of a broad cooperation agreement with Angola encompassing cooperation in agriculture and petroleum. The protocol, struck during Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh's April 2008 visit to Luanda, was approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in September. A similar agreement signed the same month with Mozambique led to the announcement that Petrovietnam will invest US$85 million in a gas pipeline there.