Gazprom Neft sets up production of parts for refineries, services plants itself

MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) - Gazprom Neft has set up its own production of spare parts for oil refineries at subsidiaries in Omsk, the Russian oil company's head of oil and gas processing, Oleg Vedernikov said in an interview with Gazprom's in-house magazine.

In this area "we are ensuring complete sovereignty: servicing our facilities ourselves, repairing them ourselves," he said, adding that the company is fully maintaining its refinery modernization program.

Modernization projects largely used Russian equipment, and the "foreign suppliers who refused to fulfill their obligations were quickly replaced with partners from Russia or friendly countries," Vedernikov said, adding that all the technologies needed to complete existing projects have been acquired.

"For the further development of oil refining on the path to integration with petrochemicals, it is necessary to create Russian solutions. This is a difficult task that touches on equipment manufacturers, among others, but it must be it must be solved," Vedernikov said.

Gazprom Neft fully met its oil refining target for 2022, he recalled. "This is a record year: we not only exceeded the 2021 figures, but also set a record for amount of refining in Russia (including the stake in Yaroslavnefteorgsintez) - more than 41 million tonnes," he said.

"In 2023, we're planning that our refineries will operate at the process maximum, taking into account scheduled repairs, and here it's important to note that while maintaining capacity utilization at our oil refineries will be able to give the market more product thanks to implemented projects to increase efficiency and the depth of refining," Vedernikov said.