OMV Petrom has finished the €600 million modernisation of its Petrobrazi refinery. The main objective of the investment programme was to increase competitiveness. OMV Petrom is now able to process its entire Romanian crude production in a single refinery, now capacity has been increased to 4.2 million tonnes a year. The investment fits with OMV Petrom’s integrated company model.
Following the modernisation, diesel and jet fuel will have a share of up to 45 percent in the products output. While Petrobrazi was capable of producing around 900,000 tonnes of diesel a year in 2009, now that capacity has increased to more than 1.5 million tonnes.
Neil Anthony Morgan, OMV Petrom executive board member, responsible for refining and marketing, commented: “The increase of the diesel share in the refinery’s production will enable a better response to demand in the Romanian market. In the past, when the refinery was designed, gasoline consumption exceeded that of diesel but in recent years this trend has been reversed.”
In addition, modern equipment and adjustment of refining capacity will have a positive impact on efficiency. The refinery’s total energy consumption will be reduced by 25 percent compared with 2009. Following the completion of the modernisation programme, the OMV Petrom says the refinery now has a Nelson Index1 of 11.28, above local and regional peers.
The refinery’s tank farms were among the installations to benefit from the upgrade. Most of the work was performed during two scheduled general shutdowns. Operations in the final phase involved around 5,000 people working on site and were finished on time, without any incidents.
OMV Petrom, is the largest integrated oil & gas group in South-eastern Europe, with an annual production of approximately 66 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). The group has a refining capacity of 4.2 million tons a year and owns an 860 MW high efficiency power plant and a 45 MW wind park. The Romanian company is 51 percent owned by Austrian energy group OMV. The Romanian state, via the Ministry of Economy, holds 20.64 percent.
