Vietnams VN Oil has picked Chemical Engineering Partners of California to construct the countrys first used oil rerefinery, with capacity to process 69,000 metric tons of used oil per year and produce 50,000 t/y of API Group II base oil.
Expected to start up by April 2015, the rerefinery will sit on 12 acres in the Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park, approximately nine miles from downtown Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. CEPs CFO Harrison Phillips told Lube Report that the company expects the new plant will create between 40 and 50 jobs.
Harrison also mentioned that the plant will treat used oil collected exclusively from Vietnam, and that its output of base oil will be marketed in Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and possibly beyond in the future.
In a May 8 news release, CEP said it will license its proprietary oil regeneration technology that it previously established at the 150,000t/y Lwart rerefinery, which the company says is the largest rerefinery in Brazil, and the only plant that produces Group II base oil in that region.
In the news release, VN Oil pointed out it believes the new plant will help the country reduce its current dependence on foreign base oil by around 12 percent.
We are proud to contribute to the environment protection of Vietnam through used oil treatment, while at the same time contributing to the industrialization and modernization of the nation with production of API Group II base oil, VN Oil Chairman Van Huu Nguyen said.
For the Vietnam contract, CEP has selected Govind Development, LLC of Texas for engineering, procurement, construction, and management.
CEP remains an affiliate of Newark, Calif.-based rerefiner Evergreen Oil, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy April 9. That relationship will most likely end with the sale of Evergreens assets, and the bankruptcy has no effect on CEP, Harrison told Lube Report.