An oil tanker carrying 80,000 metric tons of crude oil docked at the refinery's terminal Sunday, said Vietnam News Agency.
According to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, or PetroVietnam, the operator of the refinery, the testing period will last one year, the report said.
The refinery will be fed four million metric tons of crude oil from the Bach Ho field to produce 3.4 million tons of petroleum products during the test run, it said.
When fully operational from 2010, the refinery will process 6.5 million tons of crude oil annually to produce 5.7 million tons of petroleum products, meeting 30% of the country's demand, Vietnam News Agency said.
The Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam signed an agreement over the weekend with PetroVietnam's subsidiaries to provide loans of $500 million-$800 million for the distribution of the refinery's products once it is operational, the newspaper Thoi Bao Kinh Te said Monday.