Five years on, ExxonMobil oil brand returns to Vietnam as import
Five years on, ExxonMobil oil brand returns to Vietnam as import
ExxonMobil, one of the world’s top motor oil brands, has made a comeback to Vietnam after a five-year absence, this time as an import rather than a locally manufactured product.
U.S.-based oil giant ExxonMobil Corp. has assigned three different partners to be the distributor of its products in the northern, central and southern regions of Vietnam, the company said at a ceremony in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.
TAT Petroleum Vietnam, the Vietnamese unit of Singapore’s leading petroleum-derived products distributor TAT Petroleum, is in charge of the central and southern markets, whereas PAN International Petroleum JSC covers the north.
Equator Co. Ltd., a Ho Chi Minh City-based oil firm, is chosen as the distributor of ExxonMobil oils for ships operating in Vietnamese waters.
ExxonMobil products include lubricants used for cars, motorbikes, trucks, vans, means of maritime transportation, and industry.
All of the products to be distributed in Vietnam will be imported from ExxonMobil plants in Singapore and South Korea, rather than produced domestically, according to TAT Petroleum Vietnam.
Locally produced products used to be available in Vietnam until late 2009, when ExxonMobil sold the lubricant business of its Vietnamese unit, ExxonMobil Vietnam Holding Co. Ltd., to Total Raffinage Marketing.
In December that year, ExxonMobil Vietnam was renamed Lubricants Vietnam Holding Limited, and started operating as a subsidiary of Total Raffinage Marketing, according to Bloomberg.
Vietnam is the fourth market where TAT Petroleum is appointed as the ExxonMobil oil dealership, according to TAT Petroleum Vietnam.
The Southeast Asian country is a lucrative market for oil and lubricant with its automobile market among the most dynamic in the world, The Saigon Times Online quoted Yasser Al-Azzawi, Pacific Islands distribution manager at ExxonMobil, as saying.
Even so, ExxonMobil currently has no plan to build an oil plant in Vietnam, he said.
