Vietnam plans to award Kuwait’s state-owned Kuwait Petroleum a licence to explore for oil and gas off the country's coast, state oil monopoly Petrovietnam said on Tuesday.

Petrovietnam told visiting Kuwait Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah it had proposed that the government award the offshore block 51 to KPC under a production-sharing contract, the oil group said in a statement.

KPC already has two licences for two nearby blocks 19 and 20, Petrovietnam said.

Sheikh Sabah is scheduled to inspect on Tuesday the site of Vietnam's second refinery project in Nghi Son in the northern province of Thanh Hoa.

KPC has a 35.1 per cent stake in the $8-billion 200,000-bpd refinery venture, while other parties are Japanese refiners Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui as well as Petrovietnam. – Reuters