PTT Plc, the country's oil and gas conglomerate, says its plan to develop a US$20 billion refinery and petrochemical plant in Vietnam is still on course despite years of delay.
Saran Rungkasiri, chief operating officer of PTT, said the company had yet to make any final decision and had assigned the project to its petrochemical subsidiary, IRPC Plc.
"We assigned IRPC to run the project because it has strong experience in the petrochemical business," said Mr Saran, adding that the company had conducted a feasibility study of the project, which took a long time.
PTT's comments were in response to recent media reports that Vietnam's Binh Dinh province had scrapped the $20 billion refinery and petrochemical plant with PTT because of delays in getting construction of the project going.
Mr Saran said the feasibility study took four years and PTT is still searching for a local partner after Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil firm, was forced to withdraw from the project because of collapsing global oil prices.
He said the company aimed for the project to fully integrate oil refinery and petrochemical operations.
According to the previous plan, Saudi Aramco would contribute capital expenditure on the oil refinery and PTT would invest in the petrochemical plant.
In 2014, the Binh Dinh provincial authority joined hands with the two energy firms to create a joint venture and started seeking a local partner.
PTT shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 330 baht, up one baht, in trade worth 1.44 billion baht.