REFINERY NEWS ROUNDUP: Refineries in Europe cut runs on new lockdowns

London — Refineries in Europe are reducing throughput as new lockdowns are imposed across the continent to contain the spread of coronavirus while a number of refineries remain closed.

Oil companies reported low runs in Q3 and forecasts remained bleak, with a number of companies starting to look into biofuel conversions.

** Italy's Eni said throughput at its refineries in Italy in the third quarter fell 35% year on year to 3.8 million mt "in response to a sharply depressed refining scenario, as a consequence of the demand backdrop due to the pandemic." Similarly, throughput in the first nine months of the year fell 31% to 10.89 million mt. Its Q3 throughput at all refineries, including outside Italy as well as the UAE Adnoc refinery in which Eni acquired a 20% stake in August 2019, was 6.11 million mt, down 21% on the year. The company said during a conference call that Adnoc is a very strong refinery, despite the current loss, and had the capability to resist the negative wave better than other assets and turn to positive results once the market returns to a normal situation. Separately, the average refinery utilization rate, including at its refineries outside Italy, was 69% in the third quarter, down from 94% in Q3 2019 and 68% over January-September, down from 89%. However, Eni said throughout at its bioplants was significantly higher year on year due to the start-up of the Gela bio-refinery in August 2019 and a stronger performance at the Venice plant. Eni said it could speed up its biorefinery conversion plan through 2050 considering the good results of the sector and significant market opportunities including for biojet that are expected in the next years.

** Repsol said it planned to expand its Spanish production of HVO to more than 850,000 mt/year by 2025 and total biofuel output to up to 1.4 million mt/year by 2030 as it debottlenecks production at all five Spanish refineries to complement the new 250,000 mt/year unit that it announced earlier this month it will build at Cartagena and increases bioethanol capacity. At present HVO capacity in the company's refining system is 380,000 mt/year. By debottlenecking the hydro treatment units in all five, Repsol would add a further 250,000 mt/year capacity for HVO production by 2025, CEO Josu Jon Imaz told analysts on a conference call Oct. 29. The new volume would be further boosted by the new production from 2023 from its new 250,000 mt/year biofuel refinery at Cartagena, announced Oct. 22, which will be fed by a mixture of industrial waste, recycled oils and possibly imported feedstock through the adjoining port.

** Poland's largest refiner PKN Orlen said Oct. 28 its overall crude throughput was down 0.8% in Q3 at 8.2 million mt. Throughput at the company's main Polish refinery in Plock was unchanged at 4.2 million mt and utilization rose 1 percentage point on the year to 103%. Throughput at the company's Orlen Lietuva refinery in Lithuania dropped 0.5% to 2.1 million mt and utilization dropped 20 percentage points on the year to 81% "as a result of adjusting throughput to macro situation." Throughput at PKN's Czech refineries fell 0.2% to 1.9 million mt and utilization was down 9 percentage points on the year to 88%, due to "lower demand for middle distillates" as well as maintenance at some petrochemical installations. Overall sales of refined products were 12% down on the year at 6.4 million mt as demand for fuels was hit by COVID-19. Meanwhile, its petrochemical operations reported higher sales of olefins by 3%, fertilizers by 12% and PVC by 9%, but a 5% drop of polyolefins and 14% drop of PTA sales. The company expected that "permanent restructuring of the refining industry seems to be inevitable, and biofuels and integration with petrochemicals should gain in importance." It also said that refining margins may remain under pressure until the global capacity is reduced by around 3 million b/d, "which may take several quarters."

** Poland's second-largest refiner Grupa Lotos said late Oct. 29 that its throughput in the third quarter fell 6% year on year to 2.55 million mt thanks to lower demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Lotos said it ran its Gdansk refinery at almost full capacity over July-September, with throughput up 0.4% quarter on quarter as fuel demand in Poland recovered. "In Q3 2020 demand for petroleum products in Poland was recovering fast after a slump recorded in Q2 2020, following restrictions on non-essential travel, border closures and the suspension of air traffic. The summer holiday season especially saw a marked increase in domestic travel, stimulating a recovery and further increase in gasoline demand both month on month and year on year," the company said in a Q3 report. "In August alone, demand for motor gasoline in Poland was higher year on year." Lotos said it maximized gasoline, naphtha and bitumen output and reduced the middle distillate yield, mainly jet fuel, thanks to reduced air traffic as a result of the pandemic.

** Austria-based OMV said its Jan-Sept refinery utilization at 87%, or down 9% on the year, was "relatively resilient in light of the COVID-19 impact." Its 2020 utilization rate at European refineries is forecast at around 85%, down from 97% in 2019. The company reiterated that there is no major turnaround planned for its European refineries in 2020. The indicator refining margin in January-September at $2.69/b was 37% down "mainly due to lower cracks for middle distillates and gasoline." It expected its 2020 indicator margin to be around $2.50/b, down from its previous forecast of $3/b and from $4.40/b in 2019. Petrochemical margins are expected to be "slightly below" the 2019 margin of Eur433/mt. Utilization in Q3 was also "at a resilient level" of 90%, down from 96%, whereas Q3 sales were 16% lower at 4.7 million mt, which were mainly attributable to lower jet fuel demand. In the petrochemical sector, "while the ethylene/propylene net margin decreased by 15%, the benzene and butadiene spreads contracted sharply" and the falling margins could not be fully offset by increased petrochemical sales.

** Shell said it planned to transform its current footprint of 14 refining sites into six "energy and chemicals parks", namely at Deer Park (US), Norco (US), Pernis (NL), Pulau Bukom (Singapore), Rheinland (Germany) and Scotford (Canada).

** France's Total reported 62% of utilization based on crude processing at all of its refineries in January-September, down from 83% last year. Its French refineries processed 242,000 b/d in the nine months of the year, down 53% on the year. The steam crackers utilization rate however was unchanged at 81%. In Q3, utilization was 57%, down from 82% last year and 59% in Q2. Throughput at Total's French refineries was 267,000 b/d in Q3, down 47% on the year, but up from Q2. Refinery throughput fell in Q3 "mainly due to high inventories of refined products and the drop of demand," the French oil major said in its Q3 report. The reduction was also attributed to the "extended shutdown of the distillation unit" at the Gonfreville refinery following an incident at the end of 2019 as well as a "safety outage" at the Port Arthur refinery in the US related to Hurricane Laura.

** Galp expected its halted fuel production units at the smaller of its two Portuguese refineries in Porto to continue for most of the fourth quarter, CEO Carlos Gomes da Silva said Oct. 26. The units were halted for a second time this year on Oct. 10 due to the impact of COVID-19 on fuel demand and long inventories. The company also reported a negative refining margin of minus 70 cents/b in the second quarter due to weak distillates cracks.

** Italy's Sarroch refinery said it would operate at minimal levels in October and November to offset the effects of a drop in refining margins over the past few past months as part of a wider cost-cutting program it was introducing, a statement released Oct. 12 by plant owner Saras said. The plan includes a reduction in previously planned maintenance, although all units required for a recovery in crude demand now expected for 2021 would be kept operational.

** Spain's La Rabida will keep two units at the refinery -- Fuel Unit 1 and Vacuum Unit 2 -- offline once they concluded their current maintenance in order to adapt to the current weak demand for refined products, it said Oct. 8. Cepsa said it was carrying out maintenance on one of the two crude distillation units at the site, without saying when it would return.

** Croatia's Rijeka refinery will optimize its operations from November "for a few months" and during that period will "perform regular technological activities at process units such as catalyst regeneration and preparation of these plants for the new processing cycle in 2021 through regular maintenance work," the company said late Oct. 7. Earlier local media reported that the refinery will temporarily halt production between November and January due to reduced demand caused by the spring lockdown and a weak tourist season.

** Finland's Neste said on Oct. 22 that it is continuing to explore the possibility of shutting down operations at its Naantali refinery as part of a mulled restructuring of its refinery operations in the country. "We are exploring the shutdown of the refinery operations in Naantali and focusing the Naantali site on the terminal and harbor operations, as well as transforming the Porvoo refinery operations to co-processing renewable and circular raw materials," Neste said on Oct. 22. It said the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact physical products demand and both diesel and gasoline margins continued to be under pressure. In 2017, Neste completed the integration of the Porvoo and Naantali refineries that now operate as one refinery with a total capacity of 13 million mt/year.

** Total said it would convert its French Grandpuits refinery "into a zero-crude platform". By 2024, the plant will focus on new industrial activities, including production of renewable diesel mostly for the aviation industry, production of bioplastics, plastics recycling and operation of two photovoltaic solar power plants. Crude oil refining will be discontinued in the first quarter of 2021 and storage of oil products will end in late 2023. Meanwhile, deliveries of oil products were disrupted from Granduits twice in October as staff joined an industrial action. The strike was over expected job losses among staff and subcontractors.

** Gunvor Group said Oct. 16 it would mothball its Antwerp refinery, but "will continue terminal activities, as well as further assess future development opportunities for the land and existing units." Gunvor Group said in June it was considering whether to mothball the Antwerp site as "a confluence of geopolitical and macroeconomic events exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic has put the refinery in a very difficult economic situation". The refinery stopped crude processing at the end of May.

** Shell recently relaunched the sale of its Fredericia refinery in Denmark after suspending the sale in 2018.

** Spanish refiner Repsol took its fluid catalytic cracker at Corunna offline in April and had reported no change in the situation as of Oct. 2. At Bilbao, Crude 2 unit, which was taken offline May 9 due to market reasons, was still offline, the company said Oct. 2. The unit is expected to stay offline until market conditions warranted. The halt has affected 40% of the refinery's crude distillation and also includes the visbreaking unit. The FCC was taken offline in April, and the company had not confirmed its restart.

** Germany's Heide plant had "only slightly reduced its throughput" due to the end of the bitumen season, the refinery said Oct. 27. "In times of weak margins, this situation requires a special look at production that is still economical," the refinery said, adding it had achieved this by reducing the throughput slightly.

** Germany's Schwedt is still running at reduced runs, according to sources. Traders said the refinery had been running at around 80% since late September.

** In more positive news, Portuguese demand for gasoline and diesel in September returned to levels similar to the last three years, according to the energy regulator, while jet fuel continued at about one-third of its normal levels due to the impact of ongoing travel restrictions in Europe. Diesel demand in September totaled 403,481 mt, up 3% year on year, Entidade Nacional Para O Setor Energetico (ENSE) reported. The volume was also higher than 401,000 mt reported in September 2018, but less than 418,000 mt in September 2017. Gasoline demand in September was 85,807 mt, also up 3% year on year and in line with the average volume of the previous three Septembers. For both road fuels, September was the first month since the pandemic declaration in March with a year-on-year increase for either product.

** Turkey's diesel demand during the first 24 days of October was 3.4% higher year on year at 1.308 billion liters, according to energy ministry data. The rate of increase slowed from the 5.9% year-on-year rise reported in September. Gasoline demand over the October 1-24 period rose by 15% to 178,778 million liters, slowing from an 18.9% rise in September.

** Italy's demand for refined oil products fell 7.5% in September, or 392,000 mt year on year to 4.8 million mt as the pace of the previous months' declines slowed due to a gradual recovery in demand following the easing in May of the two-month COVID-19 lockdown, according to data released by industry group Unione Petrolifera.

** Road fuel deliveries in France increased 0.7% year on year to 4.136 billion liters in September, with a 0.4% fall in diesel consumption offset by a 4% rise in gasoline consumption, according to industry group UFIP on Oct. 14, quoting data from the country's oil industry committee CPDP.

** In other news, global commodity trading house Trafigura bought a 3% stake in Italy's Saras, the owner of the 300,000 b/d Sarroch refinery in Sardinia, the market value of which has shrunk by more than two-thirds this year. Trafigura plans to "engage constructively with Saras as a supportive shareholder," a spokesperson said Oct. 23, confirming local reports of the transaction.

** Eni's Porto Marghera biodiesel refinery in Northern Italy started maintenance work at its Ecofining unit for 13 days starting on Oct. 23, a person close to the refinery said Oct. 27. The biorefinery has placed its Ecofining unit's HF1 plant offline for the duration of the upgrade works, according to the source.

** Production at Tupras' 220,000 b/d Izmir refinery and at Socar's 212,000 b/d STAR plant was unaffected by an earthquake registering 6.6 on the Richter scale centered offshore from Turkey's Aegean regional capital of Izmir, 40km to the south, in late October. A spokesman for Tupras confirmed that the refinery had not been affected by the quake and that production was continuing as normal, while in a written reply Socar confirmed that neither their STAR refinery nor the adjacent Petkim petrochemical plant had been affected by the quake.

NEW AND ONGOING MAINTENANCE, UPGRADES

FUTURE MAINTENANCE

UPGRADES

LAUNCHES

Near-term maintenance

New and revised entries

** Spain's Petronor said Oct. 27 it would restart the hydrogen unit H3 in Plant 3 which was taken offline Oct. 23 for maintenance work. The refinery had recently carried out maintenance on a number of other units including the boiler in Plant 3 on Oct. 20, with no restart date supplied, as well as the alkylation unit AK3, which was also taken offline from Oct. 19 for maintenance work and should restart Dec. 13. Plant 3 contains most of the refinery's conversion units. Earlier, Petronor said it would bring the N2 naphtha desulfurization unit in Plant 2 back online from Oct. 16, without adding details.

** Italy's Milazzo refinery in Sicily returned its FCC unit to full operations after maintenance work that started between August and September, according to information provided by a source close to the refinery. The duration of the maintenance work is not known, nor was information available on when the plant was returned to full operations. Milazzo refinery postponed a wide-scale maintenance and upgrade cycle originally scheduled for October this year to next year, and would have included works on its turboexpander plant, according to sources close to the refinery. The maintenance will now likely take place in April and May next year, according to one source. Another person close to the refinery said it would take place between the first and the second quarter of 2021 "as long as market conditions permit this." The company was not available to comment.

** Germany's Lingen has completed its partial works, which were planned for October, and is fully back online, trading sources said Oct. 26.

** General maintenance at Germany's Leuna will be carried out in Q2 2021, although the exact timing is yet to be confirmed, the company said Oct. 19. The maintenance and an upgrade which had been scheduled for this autumn had been postponed "due to the ongoing pandemic and the resulting restrictions on travel and transport of goods, as well as the impact on international supply chains," the company said earlier this year. The maintenance had been planned to take placed over six weeks, S&P Global Platts reported previously. Total said in 2019 it would invest Eur150 million in the Leuna refinery over 2020-21 to reduce production of heavy products as demand decreased and increase production of methanol, a key feedstock for the chemical industry. The project will deepen the integration of refining and petrochemical operations and increase the competitiveness of the plant, Total said at the time. Methanol production will increase by 20% as a result of higher output from the visbreaker unit and an upgrade of the POX/methanol plant. Work was due to continue until 2021, with the bulk carried out during a major shutdown of the refinery in 2020, which will also cost around Eur150 million.

** The Godorf site of the Rheinland refinery is closing for full maintenance with the process of shutdown due to be complete by Nov. 5. Works will last several weeks. The refinery recently completed maintenance on the Wesseling site. The refinery consists of the Wesseling (south) and Godorf (north) sites.

Existing entries

** Shell's Pernis refinery in the Netherlands will start works on one unit from mid-October, it said Oct. 13. The works are expected to continue for around two to three months, traders said.

** Spain's La Rabida will keep two units at the refinery -- fuel unit 1 and vacuum unit 2 -- offline once they conclude their current maintenance in order to adapt to the current weak demand for refined products, it said Oct. 8. Cepsa told S&P Global Platts Sept. 30 that it was carrying out maintenance on one of the two crude distillation units at the site, without saying when it would return or whether other units were affected. However, the two units will not immediately return. Instead, the company said it will periodically re-evaluate the market condition to decide when to bring the units back online while it is starting temporary lay-off discussions with workers.

** Repsol said it was planning to extend a planned turnaround of its 1.83 million mt/yr hydrocracker at Puertollano in November to carry out works on a number of other units, as had been reported by local newspaper Mi Ciudad Real. The halt will last about one month, Repsol also confirmed. The newspaper report said several units associated with the hydrocracker will be affected. These include the 1.6 million mt/yr fluid catalytic cracker, which has been working at minimum levels due to pandemic restrictions on travel, the 3.9 million mt/yr vacuum unit and the 1.4 million mt/yr coker. The halt would also allow some maintenance work in crude unit 2 or the alkylation unit, which together could mean halting 80% of the refinery. The lubricants unit and petrochemical sites would retain normal activity, the report said.

** Croatia's Rijeka refinery will be optimizing its operations from November "for a few months" and during that period will "perform regular technological activities at process units such as catalyst regeneration and preparation of these plants for the new processing cycle in 2021 through regular maintenance work," the company said late Oct. 7. Earlier local media reported that the refinery will temporarily halt production between November and January due to reduced demand caused by the spring lockdown and a weak tourist season.

** Russian energy group Lukoil's ISAB refinery in Sicily will focus its two-month maintenance cycle starting on Oct. 15 on the cracking and the desulfurization plants in the South section of the refinery as well as other units, a source close to the refinery told S&P Global Platts Oct. 13. ISAB is made up of two refineries connected by a pipeline. The north and south plants operate as a single refinery after the two separate units were integrated in 2007. The separate IGCC plant is connected to both plants. The maintenance will also involve some work on the North plant, though this will be limited compared with the South plant upgrades. The refinery will be offline for the entire period, the source said.

** Some units at the Scholven part of Germany's Gelsenkirchen refinery will halt for planned maintenance from mid-October, the refinery said. The maintenance, which had been initially planned for April, has been postponed due to the coronavirus lockdown. It is expected to last around eight weeks.

** Total's refinery in Antwerp has started maintenance late September, according to local media report. The installations are planned to restart from November 10. The turnaround involves increasing the efficiency of the furnace of one of the two CDUs. Works are planned for one of the two catalytic crackers.

** ExxonMobil's Antwerp refinery is planning works in October, according to market sources. The full maintenance is planned for the whole month.

** API's refinery in the Italian coastal town of Falconara Marittima is placing its U2500 desulfurization unit offline for maintenance and upgrade works. The refinery went fully offline at the start of April after starting to wind down operations in March in a bid to offset a decline in demand for refined products in Italy caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It has since been restarted, and the plant carried out maintenance and upgrade works on its TK205 crude storage units in June. The Falconara refinery facility had only returned to full operations in March after a 40-day turnaround that began on Jan. 25.

** Greek refiner Hellenic said that the planned maintenance at its Aspropyrgos refinery, the first after a five-year run, will start on Aug. 28, with the gradual shutdown of units, and will last nine weeks, "two more than planned, to include additional safety measures for COVID-19." Due to the maintenance, Hellenic expects 800,000 mt lower output spread over Q3 and Q4.

** Turkey's Tupras said work on the U-400 FCC, U-9200 CCR, U-9900 Isomerization and U-9900 MQD units at Izmir and the Plt-6 Desulfurizer at Izmit, all of which had been scheduled to take between three to eight weeks each during the fourth quarter, have been postponed to 2021.

** Two planned maintenances at the Castellon refinery is eastern Spain have been pushed back, with no fixed date for when they will now go ahead. The first was previously scheduled for May and to last two to three weeks, affecting two distillation units, the powerformer 1 and the HVN. A second maintenance, initially due for November for two to three weeks, affecting one conversion unit (treatment plant) and the 1.4 million mt/year coker, has been pushed back into 2021.

** Gunvor said June 23 its Rotterdam refinery was undergoing a turnaround due to be completed in October. The company said at the end of March it was delaying the turnaround due to the coronavirus pandemic. Gunvor halted CDU1 in November for economic reasons and also to prepare for the upcoming turnaround in March, it said previously. The refinery has CDU units of 38,000 b/d and 50,000 b/d capacity.

** France's Gonfreville is working at around 50% capacity after its CDU was damaged. Works to repair the crude distillation unit at the Gonfreville refinery which have been suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak have now resumed, according to market sources. Total said earlier the CDU, which was damaged in December following a fire at a pump feeding crude oil, will restart before the end of the year.

** Eni's Sannazzaro de Burgondi refinery in northern Italy started another cycle of maintenance and upgrade works, even as a decision on when to reactivate its Eni slurry technology (EST) unit, which has been offline since a 2016 fire, is still outstanding. No information was provided on which plants were involved in the maintenance and upgrade works, nor when the EST plant would be restarted. The works being carried out are not the series of works planned for the EST unit that had previously been suspended, the source said.

** The Canary Islands' only refinery on Tenerife will be permanently closed in the long term. There has been no production since 2014. Cepsa will install some logistics and storage facilities at the site, amid a wider regeneration project.

Future

New and revised entries

** Italy's Milazzo will carry out large-scale maintenance work in the first quarter of 2021, according to a source close to the refinery. No information was available on which units would be involved in the upgrades or how long the works would last, though the source indicated the planned maintenance had originally been scheduled for 2019 and had been postponed various times. Milazzo is also scheduled to carry out maintenance works on its diesel plants in the second quarter of 2021. Around half of the refinery's plants will be involved. The works were originally planned for the autumn but were recently postponed to next year due to the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent drop in demand for refined products, which led Milazzo to cancel all but necessary maintenance and investment works in 2020.

Existing entries

** Valero said that it carried out FCC works at UK's Pembroke in Q2 which had been originally planned as part of a 2021 turnaround.

** 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.

** Lukoil's Neftochim refinery in Burgas, Bulgaria, will be carrying out major works in 2021, including atmospheric vacuum unit 1, atmospheric vacuum units 2, atmospheric vacuum distillation 2, FCC, hydrotreatment, hydrocracker, according to company tender documents. The refinery typically carries out works around February-March.

** Italy's Livorno will avoid all non-essential maintenance and investment as part of a plan to reduce coronavirus-related risks. As part of the decision, the refinery will postpone a planned extraordinary maintenance cycle scheduled for October to 2021, though it is not clear whether this will take place in the first few months of the year or in April-May. The October maintenance was originally scheduled to last about one and a half months and would have involved most of the refinery's main units as well as its storage plants.

** With its 2020 maintenance, Romania's Petromidia and the petrochemical division "will align with the new operating strategy, with a general turnaround scheduled for 4 years and technological shutdowns scheduled for 2 years," the company said.

** Finland's Neste said that its Porvoo refinery's major turnaround in 2020 is postponed to 2021 and would be carried in phases. The company had planned works for the second quarter of this year, but had to postpone them due to the coronavirus pandemic.

** Germany's Mineraloelraffinerie Oberrhein (Miro) will carry out a major turnaround in 2021. It will invest Eur300 million, with two-thirds going on new projects and a third for upgrading the existing plants during the turnaround.

** Two months of maintenance at the Sarpom refinery in Trecate, Italy, originally scheduled for October 2019 have been pushed back to 2021. 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.

** The next major maintenance at Poland's Gdansk is planned for spring 2021.

** Repsol's refinery at Puertollano in central Spain will carry out an upgrade of its olefins unit as part of planned maintenance of the cracker and chemical derivative plants at the end of 2020.

** The next major turnaround at Preem's Gothenburg refinery in Sweden will be in 2021.

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

Upgrades

New and revised entries

** Spain's Petronor said it would bring into service a new pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit which is part of the HD3 hydrodesulfurization unit, with the unit being started for the first time Oct. 30 after four weeks of testing. The PSA is used to purify hydrogen before it is used in the refinery's H2 circuits.

** Serbia's Pancevo had completed construction of its deep processing complex, according to media reports. The launch of the complex, which includes a delayed coker, will increase the depth of processing to 99.2%, boosting gasoline and diesel output and helping the refinery halt fuel oil output. It will allow the refinery to produce petroleum coke, which the country has so far imported. Separately Pancevo will upgrade the catalytic cracker, Gazprom Neft said previously. NIS, a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft, had signed a contract for developing the project with Lummus Technology, part of McDermott Group. The completion is earmarked for 2024. This is part of the refinery's modernization, ongoing since 2009. Within the same project a unit will be built for the production of high-octane gasoline components.

Existing entries

** Bulgaria's Burgas refinery has awarded a contract to US Lummus Technology for a 280,000 mt/yr polypropylene plant. The contract includes a technology license as well as as basic design engineering, training and services, and catalyst supply, Lummus said. "This award is the second significant polypropylene contract we've signed with Lukoil recently," said Leon de Bruyn, Lummus Technology's President and Chief Executive Officer in the statement. Lummus said it has earlier been awarded a contract for a propylene unit at Lukoil's Russian Kstovo refinery in Nizhny Novgorod.

** Hungary MOL's Croatian affiliate INA made a final investment decision to carry out a residue upgrade project at the Rijeka refinery. The project includes building a delayed coker. The company confirmed in Oct. 2020 that it will continue "and if possible accelerate, work on our strategic Residue Upgrade project and the implementation of other capital projects that can be done only when the units are partially out of operation." Its Rijeka refinery will be offline for a few months from November. MOL said the Sisak refinery will be converted into a bitumen production site and logistics hub. The facility may also produce lubricants and bio-fuel components, subject to further investment decisions.

** Poland's PKN Orlen said Sept. 24 it has completed the Czech Crown 9.6 billion ($410 million) polyethylene 3 unit investment at its Litvinov refinery in the Czech Republic. The refinery's owners, Unipetrol, a 100%-owned PKN subsidiary, has now taken charge of the black polyethylene unit, the second part of the investment, PKN said in a statement. The first part, the natural polyethylene unit, was completed in April. The polyethylene 3 unit, which can produce 270,000 mt/year of high density polyethylene, will replace production of one of the two existing production units with a capacity of 120,000 mt/year. Litvinov's polyethylene capacity will increase from 320,000 mt/year to 470,000 mt/year as a result of the investment, PKN said. Separately, McDermott International has been awarded a contract for engineering, procurement and construction management services for the upgrade of the hydrocracker at Czech Litvinov refinery.

** PKN Orlen is holding talks with the Lithuanian government about it co-financing a bottom-of-the-barrel processing investment at the country's Orlen Lietuva refinery. "Without in-depth processing there will be no future for this refinery. With the bad macroeconomic environment and margins as low as they are now, if the refinery is not modern it has problems with efficiency," PKN CEO Daniel Obajtek told state news agency PAP Biznes. Obajtek said the investment would be PKN's largest in Lithuania and it would increase the refinery's diesel, gasoline and jet fuel yield by around 10 percentage points. Obajtek said that once a final investment decision was taken the project could be completed within three years.

** The industrial complex in Tarragona will adapt one of its units to manufacture advanced high resistance polypropylene with start-up in 2021, Repsol said. When operational, the plant will be the first of its kind in the Iberian peninsula to produce the highly specialized polymers for use in the automotive sector, Repsol said. At Spain's Cartagena, work restarted in September on a lubricants unit at the at the Ilboc plant alongside Korean partner SKSol, after being halted in March amid COVID-19 restrictions. The lubricants plant will see capacity increase 50% to 1.0 million mt/yr when work is concluded, with no date supplied.

** The Kazakh-Romanian Energy Investment Fund (FIEKR) has signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract for Turkey's Calik Enerji to build a cogeneration plant at Romania's Petromidia refinery, Rompetrol said in a statement. Commissioning of the $148 million project is targeted for the first half of 2023. The new combined electricity and heat production plant will use natural gas as the main fuel. It will have capacity of 80 MW, of which 60-70 MW will fully cover the Petromidia plant's electricity needs with up to 20 MW used to heat water for the town of Navodari's heating system. Romania's Petromidia is also planning to build a diesel dewaxing unit "which will allow the refinery to significantly improve the process of obtaining diesel fuels in the wintertime," the company said in a statement. The project has estimated completion in September 2022. Separately, a second project is aimed at the increase by more than 30% of the production of polymers in the petrochemical division of Petromidia, which is "the sole producer in Romania in this field".

** Greece's Motor Oil Hellas said that its capital expenditure in H1 included the naphtha treatment complex, which has entered the construction phase in 2020 and is expected to be completed in Q1 2022.

** Poland's second largest refiner Grupa Lotos Gdansk refinery in H1 continued its Hydrogen recovery unit project, which is 99% complete, and will help increase the production of hydrogen, LPG and naphtha. However its commissioning date, previously planned for H12020 has been postponed to the second half of the year "due to difficulties related to the pandemic and technical issues". Furthermore, there is a risk of delayed launch of projects in pre-FID phase, such as the HBO (oil hydrocracker). Grupa Lotos is looking at developing a hydrocracker unit for the production of base oils.

** Valero said the cogen project at Pembroke, UK will be completed in 2021. It has previously said that the project had slowed down, "pushing out" the mechanical completion by six to nine months. In 2016, Valero submitted a planning application to build a 45 MW combined heat and power generation plant at Pembroke, which will provide power to the refinery and supplement its steam demand.

** PKN Orlen laid the foundation stone July 6 to mark the start of a Zloty 1 billion ($250 million) investment to build a visbreaking unit at its Plock refinery. The unit, which will increase gasoline and diesel yield at the refinery, is being built by a consortium of KTI Poland and IDS-BEU under a turnkey contract. It will be completed by the end of 2022. The company has said previously the visbreaker will allow the refinery to reduce fuel oil output and increase its production of distillates. The unit will have a capacity to produce 200,000 mt/year of diesel. Ongoing modernization of the hydrocracking and diesel hydrodesulfurization units at Plock will also increase the refinery's diesel production capacity. PKN Orlen, said it has purchased a license and basic design for the modernization of a hydrodesulfurization (HOG) unit to increase the production of high-margin products at its Plock refinery. PKN signed a contract to buy the license from Axens. The HOG unit at Plock was launched in 1999. The modernization will allow the unit to produce more diesel and gasoline.

** Planned maintenance and an upgrade at Germany's Leuna refinery this autumn has been postponed "due to the ongoing pandemic and the resulting restrictions on travel and transport of goods, as well as the impact on international supply chains", the company said. Work was also due to continue in 2021 and by the end of next year the project would be completed. Total said in 2019 that it would invest Eur150 million over 2020-2021 to reduce production of heavy products as demand decreases, and increase production of methanol, an important feedstock for the chemical industry.

** A new diesel hydrodesulfurization unit at France's Donges was expected to come online in 2023, Total said. Construction of the HDT-VGO units, which had been awarded to Kinetics Technology, will go ahead alongside a rail bypass which was the main requirement for the refinery's upgrade to proceed. Kinetics Technology said it had been awarded the contract for building the 40,000 b/d hydrotreater. The French government, local authorities, railway operator SNCF and Total signed a memorandum of intent in 2016 to build the railroad track bypassing the Donges refinery. Total said previously that, following the bypass agreement, it would proceed with the planned upgrade. The bypass will be ready in 2022.

** Turkish refiner Tupras' upgrade plans for its four refineries include a number of new units as well as works for modernizing existing ones. The company has opened an EPC tender valued at around $400 million for the construction of new sulfur units at its three main refineries, Izmit, Izmir and Kirikkale. Tupras has also signed a $66 million tender for the revamp of the FCC unit at Izmit, which will include the installation of flue gas treatment and energy back recovery systems. Installation work is set to start this year and complete in 2021. Work had already started on a $3.9 million modernization of the PLT-7 LPG Merox unit at Izmir designed to reduce sulfur content from 50 ppm to 30 ppm, to meet new emissions standards. Further upgrades planned at Izmir include a $25 million project to increase the capacity of the CCR U-9200 Platformer Unit from 160 cu m/hour to 225 cu m/hour, as well as a $69 million project to revamp the FCC unit and install flue gas treatment and energy recovery systems.

** Germany's Burghausen refinery is planning to commission a new ISO C4 system for the production of high purity isobutane in September.

** Bosnia's Brod refinery is offline while it is being reconstructed. A pipeline, being built to supply it with natural gas to fuel its internal processes, is expected to be ready from Q3 2020. The refinery suspended its operations in 2019 for an upgrade and to prepare for the use of natural gas. The gas will replace fuel oil as a power source for the refinery processes.

** Varo Energy's Cressier refinery in Switzerland is installing a new column at the crude distillation unit which will allow it to reduce CO2 emissions but also to expand the scope of its light products yield. The column will start operations in the second quarter of 2020.

** Upgrade work to increase San Roque's refining margin, and construct a new hydrocracker, has been halted by local government, Cepsa said. The San Roque Council ordered earthworks at the site to be halted, affecting Cepsa's work on its "Bottom of the Barrel" project. The upgrades are targeted for completion by 2022. Separately, Cepsa will revamp Isomax, fluid catalytic cracker, alkylation units at San Roque and will construct a methylene unit (Sorbex II).

** ExxonMobil said it has "made a final investment decision to expand" the Fawley refinery in the UK to increase production of ULSD by 45%, or 38,000 b/d. The more than $1 billion investment includes a hydrotreater to remove sulfur from diesel, supported by a hydrogen plant. Start-up was expected in 2021.

** Russian Lukoil plans to invest in its ISAB refinery in southern Italy and has also dropped plans announced in 2017 to sell the plant having not received suitable offers. Lukoil will invest $60 million in upgrades, including two hydrodesulfurization units.

** Cepsa said it will carry out upgrades to its aromax and hydrocracker units at Huelva. It is also carrying out an aromatics optimization project at the refinery.

** Israel's Haifa District Court has rejected an appeal by Haifa municipality along with six other neighboring communities and environmental groups against the proposed expansion of the Bazan refinery.

** Total's Feyzin is considering mothballing a visbreaker unit around 2021 as demand for heavy fuel is gradually declining and the unit works on average no more than three days a month. As a result of the mothballing seven people would lose their jobs, but would be offered other jobs within the organization, the company said.

Biofuel, hydrogen

** Spain's Repsol plans to build an advanced biofuels plant at its Cartagena refinery in Spain able to produce 250,000 mt/year of biofuels for aircraft, trucks and cars. Billed as Spain's first low-emissions, advanced biofuels plant, Repsol said the Eur188 million ($223 million) plant will be operational in 2023, producing biodiesel, biojet, bionaphtha and biopropane from recycled raw materials. Repsol said it had increased the biofuel content of its road fuels in recent years and in July produced the first batch of biojet for aviation in the Spanish market at its Puertollano refinery. This year, Repsol said its biofuel energy percentage had reached 8.5% of its fuels, in line with EU regulatory requirements.

** The conversion of Preem Petroleum's Lysekil refinery near Brofjorden has begun, in a move that will make it the biggest producer of renewable fuels in Scandinavia, the company said in a statement on Oct. 23. Preem said in its latest update to the refinery's environmental permit that it will apply to establish the capacity for the large-scale production of renewable fuels at the refinery, which it estimated would reduce climate emissions by up to 1.7 million mt/year. In an initial phase, Preem plans to carry out a redevelopment of the existing Synsat plant, which currently produces environmental class 1 diesel. When the conversion is complete, the plant will have the capacity to process up to 40% of its renewable raw materials, with the ambition to reach higher levels in the long term. The latest development follows a statement made by the company in September that an upgrade of the conventional oil productions refinery had been abandoned. Preem said in a statement on Sept. 28 that the residue oil conversion complex "was an innovative but technically difficult and costly project designed to reduce the production of sulfur-rich heavy fuel oil in favor of low-sulfur products such as diesel and gasoline." It added: "As a result of the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the energy sector globally, the economic logic of investment in this project no longer stands." Preem was aiming to build a slurry hydrocracking plant that could convert fuel oil into sulfur-free gasoline and diesel.

** Croatia's INA has selected Axens Futurol ethanol technology for the "basic engineering design" of an advanced bioethanol production plant at Sisak.

** UK Humber refinery plans a capacity increase for its renewable diesel output in mid-2021, the company said. Humber can produce 1,000 b/d of renewable diesel, after starting production around a year ago, and will reach 4,000 b/d next year. It is processing used cooking oil in the cracker, it said during a Q2 conference call.

** Spanish integrated energy company Repsol said June 15 it will build a 10-MW, green-hydrogen plant which it will use to produce synthetic fuels in collaboration with Saudi Aramco at its Bilbao refinery. The plant is part of an Eur80-million decarbonization project that will also include a carbon-capture project and a fuel-from-waste plant, and should be completed by 2024.

** Five 2 MW PEM electrolyzers have been installed and testing has begun at Shell's Rheinland refinery in Germany, but delays to the Refhyne project are now anticipated due to coronavirus restrictions, UK hydrogen company ITM said in a trading update June 8. Germany's Rhineland has started the construction of a new hydrogen production plant, using electrolysis, at its Wesseling site. The investment project, due for completion in 2020, will generate hydrogen from electricity rather than natural gas. The refinery consists of the Wesseling (south) and Godorf (north) sites. Separately, the refinery has received permission to start construction of a new power plant at Godorf. The new plant is scheduled to go on stream in 2021. As part of the modernization, Shell is converting the power plant from oil to gas.

** Germany's Heide refinery is looking to cut its carbon dioxide production for its industrial operations using grey hydrogen for refined products desulfurization, and from early 2019 green hydrogen has been added to the mix for feedstock purposes. "The goal is to have a 700 MW of electrolysis capacity installed by 2030, this would be enough to abate 1 million mt of CO2 per year by producing 100,000 mt of hydrogen...and this is only at our facility," said Wollschlaeger. To achieve its ambitions, Heide is part of the "Westkuste 100" consortium that includes EDF, Orsted, Stadtwerke Heide, Thuga and ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions, which have teamed up to advance the use of green hydrogen for industrial purposes. The consortium submitted a proposal in early 2019 to the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy to seek funds for the project. The outcome is expected to be known by the middle to end of 2020.

** Gunvor is studying the potential installation of an HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) unit at the Rotterdam refinery.

Launches

Existing entries

** Preliminary work on Estonia's new refinery has started, with an agreement signed between Eesti Energia and Viry Keemia Group with Italian company KT Kinetics Technology. The preliminary project is due to be completed in the summer of 2020, "after which the main project will be decided," according to Eesti Energia. The refinery will process 1.6 million mt/year shale oil and produce 1.5 million mt/year products. It is aimed to be completed in 2024 and produce naphtha, gasoil and ULSFO.

** Turkey's Ersan Petrol plans to start construction of its 1.4 million mt/year Nazli refinery at Kahramanmaras in southeast Turkey in mid-2020, with the plant expected to begin operations in less than four years, company owner Ecvet Sayer said.

** Azerbaijani state oil company Socar is considering the development of a second refinery in Turkey, in addition to its existing 214,000 b/d Star refinery at Aliaga on Turkey's central Aegean coast.