Construction was in full swing at the offshore oil platform site operated by PTSC, SK earthon Co.’s Vietnamese joint venture, when Maeil Business Newspaper paid a visit on Monday, local time. The site is in the coastal city of Vung Tau, which is more than two hours by car from Ho Chi Minh City.

The urgency stems from the fact that commercial production at the South Korean oil exploration and production company’s second oil block in Vietnam, Block 15-1/05, is about to begin.

At the expansive Vung Tau construction site, which is reminiscent of a military airfield, a 60-meter-long oil production platform substructure called a “jacket” lays flat at a 90-degree angle. It resembles a giant elephant resting on its side before rising.

The jacket, which is currently 75 percent complete, will be transported in October 2025 and installed upright in the waters off Vung Tau. Four 100-meter-long pipes will then be driven through the jacket’s supports to anchor it to the seabed to be a sturdy foundation for the oil production base.

After around a year of pilot production, a topside structure - which processes and separates crude oil into water, gas, and oil before exporting - will be installed around October 2026, marking the start of full-scale commercial production.

“Once the topside is installed, it will accommodate up to 150 personnel and commercial production will officially begin,” Ahn Hyung-jin, project manager at SK earthon’s Ho Chi Minh office, said.

The oil block will be SK earthon’s second site in Vietnam’s Cuu Long Basin to reach commercial production and has a projected daily output of up to 20,000 barrels.

SK earthon has identified Vietnam as its second core oil production base after Peru and is accelerating its development projects. It is currently conducting exploration, development, and production at four blocks in the Cuu Long Basin off the coast of Vung Tau, generating hundreds of billions of won in profit annually.

“There are around 100 candidate blocks offshore Vietnam beyond the Cuu Long Basin,” Kim Hyung-ki, another project manager at the Ho Chi Minh office, added. “Among roughly 20 to 30 competing companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., only the SK earthon-Murphy Oil Corp. consortium has achieved tangible results in the past two years.”

As all exploration and development blocks are clustered in the Cuu Long Basin, SK earthon is benefiting from a “clustering strategy” which involves applying successful expertise from one block to adjacent ones.

With two commercial production blocks already secured in Vietnam, the company has set its sights on the 16-01 block as the next target. It is the only block in Vietnam where SK earthon holds operating rights.

Looking ahead, SK earthon plans to expand its business beyond Vietnam into the rest of Southeast Asia, including in Singapore.

“Our goal is to reach a daily production volume of 44,000 barrels in Southeast Asia, including China and Vietnam, by 2035,” Choi Jeong-won, head of SK earthon’s Ho Chi Minh office, said. “This would be on par with the output in Peru, our primary production base.”

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