Petrovietnam ran out of Middle East crude during the Iran war—now it’s betting on LNG, wind, and nuclear

When Iran shuttered the Strait of Hormuz in March, curtailing global exports of Middle Eastern crude, energy-scarce Southeast Asia was one of the world’s hardest-hit regions. Vietnam, the region’s fastest-growing economy, was no exception. 

“One of our two refineries rely 100% on Middle Eastern crude…and for some time—not too long—we had no single drop of crude from the Middle East,” Le Manh Cuong, the president and CEO of Vietnamese state-owned oil and gas company Petrovietnam, said during the Fortune Southeast Asia 500 Summit in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Nov. 3. “We had to try to navigate and find alternative crude supply through partners and other countries.”

Le’s comments come as ASEAN increasingly grapples with the energy trilemma—ensuring energy security, affordability and sustainability—amid geopolitical turmoil and member countries’ efforts to move up the value chain.

“Three things are happening together: Energy demand keeps growing, suppliers face greater geopolitical risks and countries still need to cut emissions,” he explained. “So we have to work on building reliable power supplies, affordable energy, and the energy transition at the same time.”

The CEO acknowledges, however, that this takes time. “[Energy] resilience is not something you can build overnight,” Le........

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