Final phase of modernizing KazMunayGas refinery in Romania begins
ASTANA. July 29 (Interfax) - Romania's Rompetrol Rafinare, part of The Rompetrol Group and owned by Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company KazMunayGas, has begun the final phase of a program to increase capacity at oil refinery Petromidia, a KazMunayGas statement says.
Begun in 2006, this modernization program will be completed in the first quarter of next year, when facilities for soft hydro cracking, producing hydrogen and sulfur is put into operation. KazMunayGas said $234 million of an overall estimated cost of $377 million has already been invested in the project.
"After modernization of the main installation is complete, the volume of Petromidia processing will have been increased from 4 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes of crude, and diesel fuel output will also increase," the company said.
All product will meet Euro-5 standards, there will be a reduction of technological losses and impact on the environment, and the product cost of crude will go down with a possible full transition to Urals oil.
Rompetrol Ranfinare's General Director Arman Kairdenov, who is quoted in the statement, has said, "This program contributes to achieving the company's goal of moving into the twenty-five biggest oil refineries in Europe by profits and operating results."
Rompetrol Rafinare also plans this year to modernize its gas-sweetening facilities, convert its facilities for vacuum scrubbing and distillation into a diesel fuel sweetening installation, and also build facilities for the production of nitrogen and a new flaring system.
The Rompetrol Group is looking to process 4.17 million tonnes of raw hydrocarbon this year, including 3.94 million tonnes of oil, and invest $216 million, of which $180 million will be put into a program for increasing the Petromidia oil refinery's processing capacity.
The Rompetrol Group, a large oil and gas company in Rumania, is wholly owned by KazMunayGas Processing and Marketing. The company has three refineries (Petromidia, Vega and Rompetrol Petrochemicals) and 1,042 filling stations in Rumania, France, Spain, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Georgia. The holding accounts four one quarter of the Romanian market for retail oil-product sales, 3.5% of that market in France, and 1.5% in Spain. Rompetrol operates in sales and services in thirteen countries, and is implementing projects in Northern Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.