Lukoil's Burgas Refinery in Bulgaria Plans Shutdowns

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Lukoil (OTC:LUKOY) (Moscow, Russia), owner and operator of the 208,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Burgas Refinery in Bulgaria, is planning a major turnaround for the plant's Refinement Area.

Refinery officials confirmed that all units will be offline for 45 non-production days beginning February 2010. Three of the four distillation units will undergo a major turnaround that will affect the entire production site. The objective is to complete capital repairs, maintenance, cleaning and inspection of the area.

Once the Refinement Area is fully operational, plans initially were for the petrochemical site to undergo the same routine work. But since October 11, the ethylene plant, toluene and xylene plant and butadiene unit, among others, have halted production because for economic reasons that have forced the refinery not only to interrupt production at the petrochemical site but also to stop the Polymer production area as well. If the economic scenario improves, units will restart production in the first quarter of next year. Because of to this situation, the maintenance shutdowns for this area have yet to be confirmed.

Burgas Refinery became part of Lukoil Corporation in October 1999, when Lukoil acquired 58% of of the facility for an estimated $101 million (67.5 million euros). In 2005, Lukoil increased its ownership by acquiring stocks from minority shareholders, taking ownership of 93.13% of the total refinery stock.

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