Hungary MOL to get diesel unit going at Croatian refinery in mid-2010
2009-11-13 11:13:00
Hungarian fuels group MOL is planning to launch a new diesel-producing unit at its Rijeka plant in Croatia in mid-2010, Béla Kelemen, Vice President of refining at the Budapest-based company, said in an interview.
The hydrocracker is expected to be completed at the end of May with operations due to start in the middle of next year, Bloomberg cited Kelemen as saying.
The Rijeka refinery has the capacity to process about 100,000 barrels of oil a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. MOL got this plant and the 143,000 barrel-a-day Sisak facility when it assumed operational control of Croatian refiner INA in June. Mol is Ina’s largest single shareholder with a 47.2% stake.
A sulphur recovery plant at Sisak is expected to be operational after the middle of next year, Kelemen said, without being more specific. An isomerization unit, for making gasoline components, is also being built on site, he added.
The company has put on hold for the time being plans to build a hydrocracker at its Danube refinery in Hungary, Kelemen said. The site, also known as Duna in Szazhalombatta, is MOL’s largest with a daily oil-processing capacity of 8.1 million metric tonnes a year, according to the company’s website. That’s about 160,000 barrels a day. MOL also operates a plant at Bratislava in Slovakia and Mantova in Italy.
MOL CEO György Mosonyi said in early September that the company was not looking to add refining capacity in northwest Europe and sees little room for expansion in CEE
"Our focus will be to develop our existing portfolio to generate cash as fast as possible," he told Bloomberg on 2 Sept.