REFINERY NEWS ROUNDUP: Companies in Europe report mixed Q4 runs

European refiners that did not carry out maintenance are reporting higher runs in the last quarter of the year.

Those that had turnaround activities saw a slight drop in throughput.

* Austria-based OMV said its refineries in Europe ran at 95% utilization in the fourth quarter, up from 81% in the year-ago quarter. "Higher utilization rates were seen across all three refineries. This can be mostly attributed to a recovery in demand for refined products and, in the case of Schwechat, the lack of maintenance activities this quarter. The Petrobrazi refinery achieved a full utilization, improving on the already high levels of the previous year's quarter," OMV said. OMV expects its 2022 utilization at European refineries to be around the 2021 level of 88%. Turnarounds are planned at Schwechat in Q2 and at Burghausen in Q3. Utilization was 86% in 2020. OMV Petrom's Petrobrazi refinery operated at 101% utilization over Q4, up from 96% in the year-ago period. It expects utilization above 95% in 2022, compared with 97% in 2021, and up from 92% in 2020.

* Poland's largest refiner PKN Orlen said it increased throughput in the fourth quarter by 16% year on year thanks to favourable macro conditions and higher fuel demand boosted by renewed economic growth. Throughput at Plock grew 11% to 4.064 million mt and utilization increased 9 percentage points to 99%. Throughput at Orlen Lietuva in Lithuania rose 29% to 2.47 million mt and utilization was up 21 percentage points to 96%. Throughput at the Czech Unipetrol refineries rose 11% to 1.933 million mt and utilization was up 8 percentage points to 88%.

In Poland, diesel and gasoline demand both grew 11% in the quarter. In the Czech Republic, diesel demand rose 11% while gasoline consumption was up 10%. Lithuania saw diesel and gasoline consumption in Q4 rising 11% and 15% respectively.

* However Galp, Portugal's largest oil and gas company, said total volume processed in the downstream business in the fourth quarter fell 42% year on year to 13.6 million barrels of oil equivalent, mostly due to a production issue at the Sines refinery which affected production between mid-October and mid-December. The crude distillation unit at the refinery was halted around Oct. 11 due to an unplanned outage at one of its furnaces. The CDU has been back at full operation since mid-December. Also during the fourth quarter, Sines carried out maintenance on a hydrocracker. The year-ago comparisons were also affected by the closure of Galp's 110,000 b/d refinery at Matosinhos, which was gradually taken offline between October 2020 and April 2021.

* Lukoil reported 7.4% higher throughput in January-December 2021 at 62.959 million mt at all of its refineries. The higher 2021 throughput was attributed to increased processing rates following improved market situation. Throughput i the fourth quarter was down 10.5% quarter on quarter at 15.478 million mt, "due to scheduled maintenance works at the refineries outside Russia, as well as seasonal throughput optimization in Russia," Lukoil said. In the fourth quarter there were works at the Zeeland refinery in the Netherlands, Burgas in Bulgaria and the Ploiesti plant in Romania. Meanwhile, news emerged about the dismantling of the Tenerife refinery, which has been offline since 2014, while closures and capacity reductions announced or carried out over the past two years remained in focus:

** The government of the Canary Islands has authorized the start of work on the first phase of the removal of units at the Cepsa refinery in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The refinery has been out of operation since 2014. Dismantling and decontamination work was expected to be carried out in phases until 2025. The land could be transformed into urban green areas. Cepsa plans to transfer bunkering and storage operations to the nearby Granadilla site.

** Shell plans to end crude processing at the Wesseling site within the Rhineland refining complex in 2025 as the facilities are repurposed for non-fossil fuel feedstocks and renewable hydrogen production. Shell outlined plans for the facility to take a variety of new biogenic and waste feedstocks, underlining that no final investment decision had yet been taken, and crude processing would still take place at the adjoining Godorf site. The Wesseling portion of the Rhineland refinery accounts for half the overall refining capacity, or 8 million mt/year.

** The Livorno refinery in northwest Italy will stop refining crude and suspend all related activities by the end of 2022. The production of lubricants and ancillary activities will continue for the foreseeable future. In January, Eni said it was evaluating the conversion of Livorno into a biorefinery.

* In other news, French road fuel deliveries in 2021 rose 13.2% year on year to 48.16 billion liters, with a 10.8% year-on-year increase in diesel consumption and a 21% jump in gasoline consumption, according to industry group UFIP, citing data from the country's oil industry committee CPDP. Compared with 2019, road fuel deliveries were down 3.8% in 2021, as a fall of 6.2% in diesel consumption offset a 4.4% rise in gasoline consumption. In December, French road fuel deliveries rose 11.5% year on year to 4.28 billion liters, with an 8.1% increase in diesel consumption and a 23.3% boom in gasoline consumption, CPDP data also showed.

* The volume of vehicle fuels supplied from storage facilities to the Spanish retail market increased 19% in January year on year to 2.9 million cu m (2.3 million mt) but still fell short of pre-pandemic levels, data published Feb. 7 by national fuel distributor Exolum showed. Supply volumes were around one seventh short of pre-pandemic January levels from 2019 and 2020, the data showed.

This was most evident in the kerosene market, where volume was 330 million cu m (264 million mt) in January 2021, up 150% year on year, but was down around 30% from pre-pandemic levels in the previous two Januarys. Likewise, diesel supply volume increased 8% year on year in January this year to 2.2 million cu m (1.9 million mt) but was down 11% versus January 2020 and 13% versus January 2019 amid a generalized switch to gasoline and hybrid vehicles over the period. Gasoline volume edged closest of all to pre-pandemic levels, with 398,000 cu m (299,000 mt) distributed in January, up 36% year on year and in line with January 2019 although still 5% below January 2020 volume, the data showed.

NEW AND ONGOING MAINTENANCE

FUTURE MAINTENANCE

Near-term maintenance

New and revised entries

** OMV said that a turnaround is planned at Schwechat in Q2.

** A power outage of the plant which supplies Germany's Heide refinery with electricity and steam occurred in the early hours of Feb. 6, leading to a shutdown of operations, the refinery said. The outage was caused by a defective voltage regulator. Once the fault is fixed, the units will gradually restart. Separately, there was a smoldering fire at a production facility in the afternoon of Jan. 6, which was extinguished quickly.

** Lithuania's Orlen Lietuva plans to suspend operations for a major maintenance in May. The works will last from May 22 to June 14.

** Greece's Elefsis (Elefsina) refinery plans works in February, according to trading sources. The refinery reported a short-term maintenance on a refinery unit in late January. Separately, a small fire at a unit at the refinery on Jan. 26 has been quickly put under control and extinguished by the site's fire brigade.

** Flaring was reported by local media Feb. 8 at TotalEnergies' Feyzin refinery in southeast France. The reports said the refinery was due to restart following maintenance. There were no details on when the maintenance began or the extent of the works.

** Local media reported in early February potential flaring at the biofuel plant La Mede during a furnace restart after works.

** API's refinery in the Italian coastal town of Falconara Marittima, which was taken offline for upgrades and maintenance work in early January, was restarting and will be fully operational Feb. 8, sources close to the refinery said Jan. 31. Falconara's diesel and gasoline catalysts were upgraded as part of the maintenance, with work also carried out on its furnaces and columns. API, which owns the refinery, was not available to comment.

** The FCC unit at Germany's Mineraloelraffinerie Oberrhein (Miro) refinery is in a start-up mode, the company confirmed Feb. 7. The unit, which produces gasoline components, has been taken out of operation six weeks ago for repairs. Due to the shutdown of the FCC, three other related units had also been halted. The gradual restart will take around two weeks, during which there could be flaring and noise. The unit went offline early January due to a technical glitch, S&P Global reported previously.

Existing entries

** Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam -- formerly known as the Pernis refinery -- which will undergo major maintenance between end January-end June, will ensure continuity of the plant's operations during the works so that while one installation is shut down, another will continue production, the company said Jan. 20. Therefore no total shutdown will be involved, and the refinery will stock "enough product to ensure continuity of supply for the time an installation is down for maintenance." The maintenance aims to further improve the safety, reliability and efficiency of the refinery's installations as well as to carry out "legally required inspections and repairs," the refinery also said.

** Croatia's Rijeka refinery continues with its maintenance, according to market sources and media reports. The company declined to comment. It has said previously that the refinery started at the end of October a planned temporary shutdown for a catalyst replacement. The maintenance was to be used for works on other units. According to media reports it involves also modification of the hydrodesulfurization reactor at the hydrocracker.

** France's Donges refinery is undergoing major maintenance during which it is also building a new desulfurization unit, it said Dec. 2. The refinery started a major maintenance in late November which is due to last until its restart in 2022. TotalEnergies halted operations at Donges on Nov. 30, 2020 due to weak margins. The plant is expected back around March 2022.

** Italy's Sannazzaro de Burgondi refinery, which was taken partially offline for large-scale maintenance works in July this year, will remain offline for the whole of next year, a source close to the refinery told S&P Global Platts. Earlier this year union sources said maintenance was being carried out on the plant's slurry technology (EST) unit, which was taken offline following a fire in 2016, as well as on the refinery's hydrocracking unit, the visbreaking plant and the gas depuration unit, among others. Eni's EST plant had originally been scheduled to restart last year but was kept offline amid the nationwide slump in demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

** Turkish refiner Tupras said that the periodic maintenance of the vacuum unit and lube complex at its Izmir refinery, both of which were scheduled to take six weeks during Q4, had been postponed to 2022. The revamp of the FCC unit at its 227,000 b/d Izmit refinery which started in Q1, was ongoing.

** OMV is planning a turnaround at its Burghausen refinery in Germany during the third quarter of 2022. The entire refinery will be at a standstill, including the butadiene plant.

** Israel's Bazan has delayed scheduled maintenance of the FCC at Haifa from Q2 2021 to the first half of 2022 when there will be also maintenance at all the Carmel Olefin facilities. Bazan will carry out maintenance of the FCC alongside maintenance at all the Carmel Olefin facilities in the first quarter of 2022.

** Poland's second-largest refiner Grupa Lotos will carry the second part of the maintenance at its Gdansk refinery in the spring of 2022.

** Romania's Petrobrazi will undergo its next big turnaround in 2022.

Future

Existing entries

** Gunvor Group said that its Ingolstadt refinery in Germany will undertake projects focused on heating systems and exchangers "to continue improving its energy efficiency and reduce its emissions." A planned turnaround in 2023 will allow additional reductions, by carrying out projects on the FCC.

** Czech Unipetrol said that following the turnaround at its Litvinov plant in Q2'20 the refinery has prepared production for a new four-year cycle. Thus, the next turnaround is due in 2024.

** Two months of maintenance at the Sarpom refinery in Trecate, Italy, originally scheduled for October 2019 have been pushed back. Details on which units at the refinery will be upgraded as part of the maintenance -- of the kind needed every 3-4 years -- had yet to emerge.

** The Holborn refinery near Hamburg, northern Germany, plans its next turnaround in 2023. Its previous maintenance was in the autumn of 2018. The refinery carries out major works every five years.

** With its 2020 maintenance, Romania's Petromidia and the petrochemical division "will align with the new operating strategy, with a general turnaround scheduled for four years and technological shutdowns scheduled for two years," the company said.

** Total's Feyzin is considering mothballing a visbreaker unit as demand for heavy fuel is gradually declining and the unit works on average no more than three days a month.