Belarusian oil refineries see capacity utilization ratio down due to sanctions, declining exports - PM

MINSK/KYIV. April 7 (Interfax) - Capacity utilization ratios have dropped at two Belarusian oil refineries, Naftan and Mozyr, which have a combined capacity of 24 million tonnes of oil annually, as oil products exports from Belarus are decreasing, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said.

"Amid toughening sanctions, basically, blocking sanctions, we set the goal for Belarusian oil refineries to meet demand on the domestic market. Therefore, their utilization has been rebalanced," the Belarusian state news agency BelTA quoted Golovchenko as saying.

"Further down the road, as the situation stabilizes and exports grow, utilization ratios at the plants will increase," Golovchenko said.

Belarus' domestic oil products consumption is presently at about 7-8 million tonnes per year.

The Novopolotsk-based refinery Naftan currently processes about 11,700 tonnes of oil daily, which translates to approximately 4.3 million tonnes per annum, while Mozyr refines about 13,700 tonnes per day (5,000,000 tonnes annually), the Belarusian premier said. Earlier in 2020, Mozyr refined almost 9,000,000 tonnes of oil per year, or almost 25,000 tonnes per day, he said.

Mozyr's utilization ratio has since almost halved.

Belarusian nitrogenous fertilizer producer Grodno Azot has now significantly reduced capacity utilization ratio to such levels that would be sufficient to meet domestic demand. "Export shipments will be made in a targeted manner in order to work out logistics and transfers of payments, he said. Full-scale shipments to outside markets, including Russia, will begin in June," he said.

Main exports of multiple-nutrient fertilizers from the Gomel Chemical Plant will also be redirected to the Russian market, he said.

"At this point, Belarusian nitrogenous and multi-nutrient fertilizers have been authorized for sale on the Russian market. Interestingly, these fertilizers have passed certification under a fast-track procedure, which took literally several months rather than several years," Golovchenko said.

Traditionally, Belarus shipped about one-third of its exports of petroleum products, mainly from Mozyr Oil Refinery, to Ukraine. Representatives of Belneftekhim, the Belarusian state oil and petrochemicals concern, said earlier that they viewed Ukraine as a premium market.

First Belarusian Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov said on February 25 that the country planned to redirect oil products previously exported to Ukraine to Russia.

Ukraine imported 8.79 million tonnes of petroleum products totally worth $5,615 million in 2021. The country particularly imported fuels worth $2,351 million from Belarus, with Belarus' share in Ukrainian imports amounting to 41.87%, $1.24 billion of fuels from Russia (22.09%), $655 million from Lithuania (11.66%), and another $1,369 million from other countries (24.37%).