Tatneft, Transneft discuss upping oil deliveries via TANEKO
MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) - Tatneft is negotiating with Russian oil pipeline company OJSC Transneft over increasing oil deliveries via TANEKO so that up to nine million tonnes can be refined per year, Tatneft General Director Shafagat Takhautdinov told the press.
"We are doing this work. TANEKO is in shape to refine nine million tonnes, but is only refining seven million tonnes at this point. When there is an outcome, we will tell you," Takhautdinov said.
The company, he said, is looking to extract 26 million tonnes of oil this year and a little more than that next year.
Earlier, the president of Tatarstan and chairman of the Tatneft board of directors, Rustam Minnikhanov, said that the TANEKO complex is prepared to refine up to nine million tonnes of oil annually with its designed capacity of seven million tonnes.
Transneft, for its part, said that the building of TANEKO, which was originally oriented to the refining of oil with high sulphur content, has not resolved the problem of reducing the amount of sulphur in the system. According to the pipeline monopoly, TANEKO's initial plans were that it would start processing oil with 2.8% sulphur content in 2012, and by 2014 - oil with 3.22% content. TANEKO informed Transneft in October that it would be able to process sulphur-rich oil only after 2015.
Minnikhanov said that TANEKO is processing oil with 1.8% sulphur content, and will be ready to accept oil with higher sulphur content after the completion of a project for the deep processing of heavy oil leftovers.
