ENERGY

BP to Spend More on Vietnam Oil Exploration: British Petroleum Co., which by the end of this year will have spent $90 million looking for oil in Vietnam, said it expects to spend $150 million on its next phase of exploration. John Browne, managing director of London-based BP Exploration, said in Hanoi that BP could spend up to $2 billion in Vietnam if it struck oil. He said Vietnam’s oil potential is encouraging, despite 18 dry wells drilled by foreign companies since the late 1980s. The Vietnamese-Russian joint venture VietSovpetro pumped 27 million barrels of crude last year from Bach Ho, Vietnam’s only producing field. It expects to produce 37 million barrels this year.