Vietnam’s national oil and gas company PetroVietnam has said that its crude oil output is likely to go down sharply in the future due to the difficulties it is facing in funding its exploration activities. The company’s crude oil output may fall 60% to 7 million mt/year in the next five-seven years if the situation does not improve, down from 17.23 million mt in 2016, PetroVietnam’s general director Nguyen Vu Truong Son told a working group of the central government on July 19, according to a recording obtained by S&P Global Platts. “If we fail to improve [exploration work], we cannot stop the falling trend [in output],” Son said, adding that PetroVietnam could only finish 30% of the exploration work planned for 2017 as of mid-July due to financing issues. PetroVietnam is also facing oil exploration difficulties in sensitive areas in the South China Sea, due to a territorial […]