Vietnam Coast Guard receives $570,000 high-speed craft

The Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group, also known as PetroVietnam (PVN), gave a high-speed craft worth VND12 billion (US$570,000) to the Vietnam Coast Guard at an event held in the southern city of Vung Tau on Monday. 

Craft CSB 421 was funded by a firm under the management of PVN.

The 13.5m-long, 3.5m-wide boat has two engines with 600-horsepower in total and is capable of carrying 3 tons of goods and 12 people.

Spare parts for the craft were imported from Sweden, the Czech Republic, Germany, and the Republic of Korea.

The high-speed watercraft was built at Viet Czech Technology Joint-Stock Company at the Vung Tau-based Dong Xuyen Industrial Park in July 2013 and was inaugurated in February 2014.

Major General Nguyen Quang Dam, commander of the Vietnam Coast Guard, said the craft will help strengthen the Vietnam Coast Guard’s capacity to patrol, maintain order, and ensure safety in Vietnamese waters.

The same day, PVN offered financial assistance of VND1 billion ($47,400) to Vietnam Coast Guard soldiers and Vietnamese fisheries surveillance force members to support and encourage them to protect the country’s sea and island sovereignty.

Also on Monday, a delegation from the Vietnam Red Cross set out to visit and give cash and gifts valued at VND600 million ($28,400) to soldiers in the Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago and marine platform DK1 off southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. 

Since early this month, Chinese vessels have continually rammed or fired high-power water cannons at their Vietnamese counterparts, causing damage to several ships and injuries to nine Vietnamese fisheries surveillance staff members.

The attacks came when the Vietnamese side was trying to persuade the Chinese to remove their giant oil rig Haiyang 981 from Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.

The Chinese rig is now located at 15°29’58’’ North latitude and 111°12’06’’ East longitude in the East Vietnam Sea, about 119 nautical miles (221 km) from Ly Son Island off the central Vietnamese province of Quang Ngai and 18 nautical miles south of Tri Ton Island off the Southeast Asian country’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.

This location, announced by the Chinese, is within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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