Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, the state-owned oil producer known as PetroVietnam, plans to shut the nation’s first refinery for inspection this month, according to an official at the operating company.

The Dung Quat plant will be closed for two to three weeks, Nguyen Hoai Giang, general director of Binh Son Refinery & PetroChemical Co., the company that runs the plant, said in a telephone interview today.

The company plans to carry out inspection works before planned maintenance in July. The shutdown will begin today, Giang said. The checks will determine what spare parts should be ordered in advance of the 148,000 barrel-a-day refinery’s full shutdown estimated for mid-July to mid-September, Giang said.

“We have to complete the overall turnaround in two months,” he said. “When we stop the refinery for turnaround, we will have ready all the required spare parts and material for replacement.”

Dung Quat, Vietnam’s only refinery, will produce about 4.9 million metric tons of petroleum products in 2011, PetroVietnam said Nov. 9. The refinery plans to import 640,000 tons of crude in the first six months of 2011 compared with a total of 400,000 tons in 2010, Giang said on Dec 23.