Delay Causes In The Construction Of The Refinery Projects In Vietnam: A Case Study On The Dung Quat Refinery Project

During the execution of construction project, project completion on time was commonly considered the key of project’s success. Project time can be evaluated as the vital factor in project management point of view because it affects directly on the profit of project if project time delay happens. The perception of project time management in construction industry has been applied in Viet Nam for recent years. Vietnam carried out the open-door policy to attract the investment from FDI (Foreign direct investment) projects. For this reason, it is essential to collaborate with oversea business and knowledge for Vietnam’s construction industry. However, many problems have been revealed due to the deficiency of the proficiencies in project management, such as:

- Project delays take place usually in the development projects due to deficient transmission among other parties, weather condition, social policy or other factors. It is surmised that about from 70% to 80% of projects of the PetroVietnam have the problems with time project delays.

- Even projects were finished on time; there are still many claims during the execution project.

Besides, the implementation of the project time management in construction industry in Viet Nam and PetroVietnam does not still achieve the effectiveness. Annually, the Vietnam Government still import large amount fuel for consumer and the result of the refinery project delays causes the huge loss of total investment and balance foreign currency of the Government.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong made a study which main objectives were to: (1) identify delay causations in the refinery construction projects which were completed up to now or under construction; and (2) develop a framework to control and prevent delays in the remaining or under construction projects of the Refinery construction project.

Conclusion

Time delays in construction industry are a global phenomenon. The consequences of this research indicate that project delays have commonly occurred in most of construction project and the refinery construction project is no exception. Therefore, the results of this study provided a framework for project managers can better understand to reduce the incidences of delays during the refinery construction project, particularly in planning, implementation, monitoring and controls.

Delay causes in the Dungquat refinery project:

It is found that there are many delay causes seriously affecting on time extension and cost of the Dung quat refinery project. The impact of delays and appropriate response strategies and solutions to control delays are summarized in this study.

The impact of delays on time can be realized by the comparison between project schedule and the real situation. The Dungquat refinery project was started in 1999 but up to now the Refinery still not operation with full capacity. Throughout the research, the refinery construction project can be considered a case study to illustrate the success in control and prevent delays causation. Figure below shows the attempt to control and prevent delays during the construction of the refinery construction project.



Framework to control and prevent delays for future refinery projects

In order to significantly prevent and control delays in the future refining construction projects, the guidelines having the most potential were considered. The result from the real situations showed that delays could be prevented and controlled by carrying out several important strategies during the implementation of the project. Vietnam Government and Petrovietnam have been summarizing all of the difficulties and mistakes during implementation time to construct the Dungquat refinery, therefore we can avoid delaying time when construct the incoming refinery projects.

The problems need to solve when investing in the refinery project:
1. Making good planning & control for the project.
2. Management of escalation in material prices.
3. Contractor’s finance controlling.
4. Management of site clearance work.
5. Management contractors’ ability.
6. Establish communication system between the partners.
7. Building standard system for every process.
8. Surveying, collecting and deal with all of the information about weather and geological conditions of the site and other problem relating the site to make good decisions for constructions of the project.

Her thesis abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

In general, project completed with destined time, cost, and quality is the basic target of construction project management. The Dung Quat Refinery (DQR) construction project is a great and vital grassroots refining construction project in Viet Nam. DQR project is located in Dung Quat Economic Zone, Binh Son Distric, Quang Ngai province. Total cost estimation is around 2.5 billions USD, 100% invested by Vietnamese Government through Petrovietnam. The construction phase was started in 2005 and planned to complete on 2009. Regretfully, the refinery could not be finished within intended time, budget and resources. Until now, whole refinery has not passed all performance tests yet.

Normally, time delay always happened in big construction projects in Vietnam. With the purpose to solve this problem, it was found that several approaches have been affected project time completion. There are many factors found as the major source leading to manage project time completion affectively.

This report summarized the delay causes factors involved in the Dung Quat Refinery project during construction stage. This research will be conducted by using qualitative research; the data will be collected to analyze the facing problems. It was discovered from this study that there were many factors causing project time delays in the project. From the case study, effective solutions for controlling the delays will be investigated and be proposed for precious experiences to control and prevent delays in other construction projects in the future.