Russian refineries have had little April maintenance in central regions, although May has seen maintenance activities increasing, with larger scale maintenance scheduled in the Far East.
Separately, Belarus's Mozyr refinery has started processing on-specification crude and was increasing runs to its optimum level. Mozyr and Naftan, Belarus's other refinery, reduced throughput at the end of April due to a contamination issue affecting the quality of Urals crude shipped via the Druzhba pipeline. In order to mitigate the impact, Mozyr reduced throughput by 40% and Naftan by 50%. Belneftekhim was reported to have asked Transneft to increase shipments along the branch of the Druzhba pipeline between Surgut and Polotsk, where the Naftan refinery is situated. However, the amount of crude shipped via Surgut-Polotsk is not sufficient to bring Naftan's runs back to the optimum level, Belneftekhim said.
In other news, Russia's Antipinsky has stopped taking crude deliveries, Russia's oil pipeline operator Transneft said. All crude deliveries to the refinery have been halted. According to market sources, the ownership of the refinery is about to change. Azerbaijan's Socar was cited as a potential buyer for Antipinsky by traders and media reports, but Socar denied it was holding any talks to buy assets in Russia.
The ownership of Russia's Afipsky refinery is also about to change, according to traders and media reports. New Stream owns Antipinsky and also has a stake in Afipsky, which it manages for Neftegazindustrija.
Russia's Safmar Group, which owns Russneft and Forte Invest, the operator of Orsk refinery, was cited by traders and media reports as a possible buyer for Afipsky. Safmar declined to comment.
NEAR-TERM
NEW AND REVISED ENTRIES
--The predominantly export-oriented 240,000 b/d Tuapse refinery on the Black Sea in southern Russia has restarted its CDU unit after an extensive turnaround and started processing crude since May 9, the company said. Previously, traders said that the refinery was expected back online by the middle of May. The unit, which was initially started in test mode, is now running at normal rates. The duration of the turnaround, which started in February, has been extended as the refinery has now moved to a three-year turnaround cycle, the company said.
--Works are also underway at Yaroslavl (Yanos) and Perm in May. A CDU unit AVT-5 has been halted at Russia's Perm refinery after a fire in mid-April, local media reported.
EXISTING ENTRIES
--Azerbaijan's Heydar Aliyev refinery will shut for "regular maintenance" in October, as progress continues on modernization work, state company Socar said. A Socar spokesman did not specify units to be shut down. He described the work as general maintenance, and noted a similar shutdown last year had lasted about a month. Once modernization is complete at the end of 2020 or beginning of 2021, further shutdowns may be less prolonged, he said. Socar said in December it had completed the first phase of modernization, commissioning the bitumen unit and LPG filling station, increasing bitumen production capacity to 400,000 mt/year from 250,000 mt/year. The second stage, to be completed by the end of 2020, will enable production of Euro-5 diesel. The third phase, enabling production of Euro-5 standard A-92/95/98 gasoline, is scheduled for completion in early 2021. The revamp will increase total throughput capacity to 7.7 million mt/year, while meeting domestic demand for high quality fuels and supplying feedstock for petrochemical subsidiary Azerkimya.
--Russia's Astrakhan, which predominantly processes gas condensate and produces only light products, is undergoing full maintenance in May, according to sources. It typically carries out maintenance in spring. It has reduced sales on the St. Petersburg exchange due to the upcoming works. Separately, the Surgut gas condensate processing plant is due to carry out its annual maintenance in July.
--Maintenance is carried at three Russian refineries in April-May - including Komsomolsk and Khabarovsk in the Far East and Achinsk in Siberia, according to sources. Russia's Rosneft halted temporarily the sales of fuel oil from its Achinsk refinery as of April 19 due to planned maintenance, the St. Petersburg exchange said.
--A CDU unit AVT-5 has been halted at Russia's Perm refinery after a fire in mid April, local media reported. The rest of the refinery is operating, according to the report citing the refinery.
--Fire services have extinguished some residue that caught fire at the Ufa refinery, the local emergency services said Tuesday. The fire was put out in less than an hour. Key production processes at the refinery were not affected, Rosneft said.
--Partial works are scheduled at Russia's Kuybishev in May, according to sources. Most refineries in central Russia will carry out partial works, including Ufaneftekhim and Ryazan which are unlikely to impact product supply.
--Work is planned this spring at a number of Russian refineries, including Novoil, Ufaneftekhim, Ryazan, Syzran, Kirishi and Omsk, involving primary processing, according to sources.
UPGRADES
EXISTING ENTRIES
--Socar said that Azerbaijan's Heydar Aliyev refinery in December had completed the first phase of modernization, commissioning the bitumen unit and LPG filling station, increasing bitumen production capacity to 400,000 mt/year from 250,000 mt/year. The second stage, to be completed by the end of 2020, will enable production of Euro-5 diesel. The third phase, enabling production of Euro-5 standard A-92/95/98 gasoline, is scheduled for completion in early 2021. The revamp will increase total throughput capacity to 7.7 million mt/year, while meeting domestic demand for high quality fuels and supplying feedstock for petrochemical subsidiary Azerkimya. The Heydar Aliyev refinery is being created through the merger, modernization and reconstruction of two existing refineries, the Azerneftyag and Baku plants, begun in 2015. The revamped facility will consist of 14 new units.
--Russia's Gazprom Neft said in February it has started preparing the installation of equipment for the modernization of the reformer unit at the Omsk refinery, with the completion set for 2020. The upgraded reformer will increase the production of high octane components substantially and and will secure the efficient processing of feedstock from two delayed cokers, also due for launch in 2020. By 2021, Russia's Omsk will complete two stages of its modernization, which started in 2007. The refinery is building a diesel hydrocracker. The complex, with a 2.5 million mt/year capacity, will replace two outdated units and will increase production of Arctic diesel. The hydrocracker will begin operations in 2020. The second stage also involves building a new primary processing complex and deep processing complex. Gazprom Neft said it has completed installing part of the CDU-VDU complex. The 8.4 million mt/year complex will allow the refinery to take outdated equipment out of service and increase the energy efficiency of the refinery. Separately, Gazprom Neft said it has started installing the main reactor equipment for upgrades to the Omsk delayed coker and has also started assembling the diesel hydrotreater which includes more than 150 Russian-made parts. Gazprom Neft said in late April that its Omsk refinery has delivered the first test batch of needle coke. The industrial output of the product, which is valuable feedstock for the metallurgic, nuclear, chemical industries, will start in 2021 after the upgrade of its delayed coker. The project will enable the refinery to become the first in Russia to produce needle coke, which currently is imported.
--Russia's Orsk plans to start building a delayed coker this year. Construction is expected to start in the autumn. Completion and launch are planned for 2023. Separately, the refinery is expecting to complete construction this year on a new unit for the vacuum distillation of fuel oil, which will secure more VGO feedstock. The equipment is currently being installed. It already has two VDU units as part of the two primary processing complexes -- ELOU-AVT and ELOU-AVT 3 with the latter having 1.8 million mt/yr feedstock capacity. But the refinery needs more VGO for the new hydrocracker, which was brought online last summer. Orsk plans to carry out works on 11 units this year.
--Russian oil company Tatneft said that it plans to launch its second primary processing complex ELOU-AVT-6 in 2019. It will help it increase capacity to more than 15 million mt/yr. It is also working on a new test units for residue hydroconversion with 50,000 mt/yr capacity, which is scheduled for launch in 2020. Its current capacity is 8.7 million mt/yr.
--The upgrade projects at Belarus Mozyr and Naftan are due to be completed in November, the country's Belta news agency cited information from Belneftekhim. Mozyr is currently building a hydrocracker H-Oil complex, while Naftan is working on a delayed coker. The construction and assembly should be completed in November 2019 after which the new units will be started in a test mode.
--Uzbekneftegaz has decided to postpone the building of a new plant in the Jizzakh region, the company said in a statement. It has decided instead to proceed with an upgrade of the Bukhara and Fergan refineries. Preliminary technical and economic concepts for the projects had been prepared for the two plants in 2013-2014 by Honeywell UOP and Axens, the company also said. Currently talks for determining the concepts are under way upon whose conclusion the projects will be finalized. They are aimed to enable the two refineries to produce Euro 5 products. Upon the completion of the upgrades, a restart of the Jizzakh construction will be considered.
--The Yaisky refinery is currently working on deep processing complex which will enable it to produce gasoline. It includes a gasoline hydrotreater, isomerization and CCR type of reformer. The launch is expected by the end of 2019. It will produce over 700,000 mt/year Euro 5 gasoline.
--McDermott International said in October 2018 it was awarded an engineering, procurement and construction contract by Lukoil for the delayed coker at the Nizhny Novgorod refinery in Russia. The delayed coker, which will process 2.1 million mt/year of residues, will be part of a deep processing complex, including a delayed coker, a diesel hydrotreater, gas fractionation, hydrogen and sulfur units. The complex has been scheduled for a 2021 start-up.
--The next stage of upgrades at New Stream Group's Antipinsky refinery in Russia involves some upgrades as well as increasing the capacity of the crude and refined product pipelines. Antipinsky, which can process 9-9.5 million mt/year of crude, currently gets 7.5 million mt/year of crude.
--New Stream Group, which bought a stake in, and started managing, the Afipsky refinery in October 2017, said the refinery had received equipment for a new hydrocracker. The VGO hydrocracker, with a 2.5 million mt/year feedstock capacity, will increase the light products yield by a third and allow the refinery to reach 80% depth of processing. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2020. The refinery has started a modernization project that involves increasing primary processing capacity to 9 million mt/year from 6 million mt/year. It also involves increasing the depth of processing to 93% from 77%. The modernization envisages construction of a hydrocracker, diesel hydrotreater, delayed coker and a CDU. An additional crude pipeline will also be built. However for the moment, New Stream does not plan to increase processing at Afipsky above 6 million mt/year.
--The next stage of the upgrade at New Stream's Mariisky refinery in Russia of the two units will increase AT-2's capacity to 1.4 million mt/year from 900,000 mt/year and the VDU capacity to 1 million mt/year from 476,000 mt/year. The refinery is expected to process 1.5 million mt in 2018, potentially rising to 1.7 million-1.8 million mt in 2019.
--The Moscow refinery is completing construction of its Euro plus (Euro+) complex, which is the key part of the second stage of a modernization, Gazprom said. Its launch is scheduled for 2019. Construction of the complex, which includes hydro treating, catalytic cracking, a catalytic reformer and visbreaking units, started in 2016. It will enable the refinery to take five outdated units offline.
--The Afipsky and Ilsky (Yilsky) facilities in the Krasnodar region have been undergoing upgrades, including building hydrotreaters at both plants which will enable them to process higher sulfur Urals crude. They now receive low sulfur Siberian Light crude, but crude pipeline operator Transneft will start building a pipeline in southern Russia with a 4.5 million mt/year capacity that will ship Urals crude to them to stimulate processing in the Krasnodar region. Ilsky, which expected to start receiving Urals crude in the fourth quarter of 2019, has five CDUs, and has been building another CDU, AT-6, which will help increase its capacity to 6.6 million mt/year. Ilsky is also planning a gasoline complex, including a CCR unit, isomerization unit, gasoline hydrotreater, plus a distillate hydrotreater, hydrocracker and delayed coker.
--A delayed coker will be installed at the Turkmenbashi refining complex in Turkmenistan.
--Rosneft, Russia's largest crude producer, plans to complete its refinery modernization program by 2025. The program includes construction and reconstruction of over 50 units, with work on more than 30 of the units having been finished.
--Salavat is working on an FCC due for launch around 2020.
LAUNCHES
EXISTING ENTRIES
--Uzbekneftegaz has decided to postpone the building of a new plant in the Jizzakh region, the company said in a statement. It has decided instead to proceed with an upgrade of the Bukhara and Fergan refineries. Preliminary technical and economic concepts for the projects had been prepared for the two plants in 2013-2014 by Honeywell UOP and Axens, the company also said. Currently talks for determining the concepts are under way upon whose conclusion the projects will be finalized. They are aimed to enable the two refineries to produce Euro 5 products. Upon the completion of the upgrades, a restart of the Jizzakh construction will be considered.
--Russia's Khabarovsk refinery plans to build a second phase to the plant close to the existing site, according to media reports. The second phase would double the refinery's capacity to 10 million mt/year, and aims to cover gasoline demand in the far east of Russia. The company is seeking an investor in the Asia-Pacific region for the second phase of the plant, which includes an FCC, hydrotreater and a delayed coker.
