Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries, or Vinacomin, plans to import 1.5 million-2 million mt of coal in 2016, up from about 500,000 mt this year, the company said Thursday.
Vinacomin's coal imports are expected to hit 10 million mt in 2020, accounting for about half of Vietnam's demand of coal imports then, it said in a statement.
Most of the coal will be allocated to power and cement production.
The Vietnamese coal company and Japan's Marubeni jointly held a meeting in Hanoi Thursday to introduce their coal import capabilities to potential buyers.
Vinacomin's trading unit, Coalimex, is in cooperation with Marubeni to import coal for a 1,200 MW power project in the country's central province of Binh Thuan.
The first unit of the power project is expected to begin operations in December 2017 and the second unit in June 2018, Vinacomin said.
Marubeni pledged to introduce Vinacomin to coal mines that it owns in other countries, to help the Vietnamese company secure long term supply of coal, Vinacomin said.
Marubeni is also interested in cooperating with Vinacomin in a coal import terminal that Vietnam is planning to construct in the southern province of Tra Vinh.
The terminal would receive imported coal for the Duyen Hai, Long Phu and Song Hau power centers in the southern region.
It would be capable of handling 35 million-40 million mt/year of coal in 2030, according to a government statement last year.
In return, Vinacomin will continue to export 2 million-3 million mt of its high quality coal for steel production in Japan.
Vietnam imported 799,617 mt of coal in October, rising 152.3% year on year but down 24.9% from September.
In the first 10 months, the country imported 5.045 million mt of coal, up 100.3% year on year, mainly from Indonesia (1.54 million mt, up 28% year on year), China (1.32 million mt, up 242% year on year), and Australia (921,480 mt, rising 88.3% from January-October last year), customs data released earlier this month showed.
