REFINERY NEWS ROUNDUP: Change of ownership in focus in Europe

Change of refinery ownership has been in the focus in Europe of late, with BP announcing plans to sell its Gelsenkirchen refinery in Germany while talks have been ongoing for the sale of Lukoil's site in Bulgaria and Serbia's NIS has been looking at mitigating the impact of US sanctions due to the partial Russian ownership of its refinery.

** Bulgaria's Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyaskov told parliament that negotiations for the Neftokhim's refinery sale will be resumed in early February. Seven companies were still in the running to buy the plant out of an initial 24. Litasco, trading arm of refinery owner Lukoil, a Russian company, will decide whom to sell the refinery to and at what price, Zhelyazkov told the national parliament. The Bulgarian state was not one of them, he said.

Zhelyaskov said that based on "unconfirmed information" the targeted price was around $2 billion. In December, Hungary's Prime Minister Victor Orban said Hungarian refiner MOL was one of the seven bidders for the refinery and the sole EU entity. Subsequently, Kazakhstan's state oil company KazMunaiGaz, which owns the Petromidia refinery in Romania, was reported to be considering participating in the tender for the refinery.

** Serbia's Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) has asked the US Treasury for a waiver on US sanctions for a minimum of 90 days, the Ministry of Mining and Energy said Feb. 4. The official request, which is supported by the Serbian and Hungarian governments, concerns "obtaining general or special licenses that would allow NIS to continue operating while an acceptable solution to its ownership structure and management is pursued, with the aim of ensuring that a company that is crucial to regional and strategic energy stability can continue its operations." US sanctions announced Jan. 10 demand that Russia's state-run Gazprom Neft exit its position in Serbia's refining sector within 45 days, requiring it to give up its 50% stake in NIS. Russia controls 56.15% of NIS via the Gazprom Neft stake and a 6.15% stake held by its parent, Gazprom. The full implementation of the US sanctions will take place Feb. 27.

NIS operates the 96,000 b/d Pancevo facility, Serbia's only refinery. It has asked for a temporary waiver "while a sustainable solution is explored that would lead to the lifting of sanctions," the statement said.

The sanctions could threaten crude supplies to the refinery, Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic has said previously. Separately, Croatia's oil pipeline operator Janaf, which has a three-year crude supply contract with NIS running from January 2024 to December 2026, has asked the US Treasury for an exemption.

Meanwhile NIS hs said its Pancevo refinery processed 1.08 million mt of crude and feedstocks in Q4, up 5% year over year. For the whole of 2024 processing was down 11% to 3.620 million mt, due to a planned maintenance in the second quarter which the company referred to as the biggest during the refinery's history.

Oil companies have reported higher 2024 throughput.

** France's TotalEnergies reported an 82% utilization rate for the fourth quarter, versus 79% in Q4 2023. Overall Q4 throughput was 1.432 million b/d, up from 1.381 million b/d in Q4 2023. Throughput in the fourth quarter was down 7% on the previous quarter due to the turnaround at the Leuna refinery in Germany, the company said Feb. 5 in its Q4 results. The company's 2024 utilization was 83% from 81% the previous year, while total throughput was 1.472 million b/d, up 2% year over year. The 83% utilization was below the annual target of 85% "due to unplanned shutdowns" at the Normandy and Donges refineries in France and Port-Arthur in the US, TotalEnergies said.

Throughput at TotalEnergies' French refineries in the fourth quarter was 424,000 b/d, compared with 444,000 b/d in Q4 2023. In 2024 as a whole, throughput at its French refineries rose 2% year over year to 422,000 b/d.

** Austria-based OMV expects the utilization rate at its European refineries to be between 85%-90% in 2025. OMV reported an 87% utilization rate at its European refineries in 2024, up 2 percentage points on the year, following maintenance at Schwechat and Petrobrazi in 2023. Separately, OMV Petrom reported a 97% utilization rate at its Petrobrazi refinery in 2024, versus 80% in 2023 when throughput was impacted by a planned turnaround. For 2025, OMV expects a margin for European refineries of around $6/b. The margin was $7.15/b in 2024, down 39%. OMV Petrom's 2024 margin was $9.2/b, 34% lower on the year.

** In other news, Zeeland Refinery experienced an outage Jan. 29 that affected its mixed xylene production due to a technical issue that has not been disclosed, a source close to the company said. Maintenance efforts are underway to address the issue and are expected to be completed within a couple of weeks. The outage is not anticipated to be a long-term issue and is expected to have a limited impact on the market.

Maintenance

Refinery	Capacity	Country	Owner	Unit	Duration
Haifa	197,000	Israel	Bazan	Part	Q1'2025
Tarragona	186,000	Spain	Repsol	Full	2028
Castellon	110,000	Spain	BP	Full	2029
Sines	220,000	Portugal	Galp	Full	2025
Busalla	32,000	Italy	Iplom	Full	2025
Augusta	160,000	Italy	Sonatrach	Full	Jan
Burghausen	76,000	Germany	OMV	Full	Apr
Neftokhim	150,000	Bulgaria	Lukoil	Full	Mar

Upgrades

Refinery	Total capacity	Country	Owner	Upgrade	Completion
Gdansk	210,000	Poland	Lotos	Conventional	2025
Plock	326,000	Poland	PKN Orlen	Conventional	2026
Litvinov	108,000	Czech	Unipetrol	Conventional	2030
Petromidia	114,000	Romania	Rompetrol	Conventional	NA
Burgas	190,000	Bulgaria	Lukoil	Conventional	NA
Kirikkale	108,000	Turkey	Tupras	Conventional	NA
Star	212,000	Turkey	Socar	Conventional	NA
Orlen Lietuva	204,000	Lithuania	PKN Orlen	Conventional	2025
Pancevo	98,000	Serbia	NIS	Conventional	NA
Rijeka	90,000	Croatia	INA	Conventional	2025
Brod	108,000	Bosnia	Optima	Conventional	NA
Donges	219,000	France	TotalEnergies	Conventional	2025
Tarragona	186,000	Spain	Repsol	Petchem	2025
Sines	220,000	Portugal	Galp	Conventional	NA
Haifa	197,000	Israel	Bazan Group	Expansion	NA
Corinth	180,000	Greece	Motor Oil	Conventional	2025
Petrobrazi	90,000	Romania	Joint	Conventional	2026
Fawley	270,000	UK	ExxonMobil	Conventional	2025

Launches

Nazli	28,000	Turkey	Ersan	launch	NA
Aliaga	NA	Turkey	Steas	launch	NA

New and ongoing maintenance

New and revised entries

** BP said Feb. 6 it was seeking "potential buyers" for its Gelsenkirchen refinery in Germany, with the marketing process for a suitable buyer to begin immediately and sales agreements targeted for 2025. BP is looking to sell Ruhr Oel, whose assets include the refinery and DHC Solvent Chemie, a manufacturer of specialized solvent products, as well as shares in the Rotterdam-Rijn-Pijplining and Nord-West Oelleitung pipelines. Refinery operations will continue as usual during the sales process, the company said.

BP said it has modernized the refinery's infrastructure in recent years, including renewing the power grid and establishing an independent steam supply.

In 2024 it initiated a transformation plan to "reduce the refinery's complexity and processing capacity" in preparation for the energy transition.

The transformation work, set to be completed in 2025, will continue throughout the sales process, resulting in crude processing capacity decreasing from 12 million mt/year (240,000 b/d) currently to 8 million mt/year with the decommissioning of five units across the Horst and Scholven plants. The refinery comprises the Horst and Scholven sites, with the latter accounting for around two-thirds of the total capacity. Some of the units will be partly decommissioned and converted to be able to process biogenic materials as well as conventional ones. In addition, coprocessing will be used for the hydrocracker at the Scholven site to produce more sustainable aviation fuel.

** The process of transitioning the UK's Grangemouth refinery into an import terminal is underway and "will continue over a number of months," a Petroineos spokesperson said Feb. 6. Market sources previously said that the refinery had commenced its shutdown process in the last few days of January, with the entire facility expected to cease operations at the end of the first quarter.

The refinery is set to operate as a national fuel distribution hub starting in the second quarter, the company also said, noting that it will ensure Scotland's supply of finished fuels. The complete winding down and dismantling of the refinery is anticipated to take around five years. The new terminal will "operate in parallel with this process," the Petroineos spokesperson said.

The company has previously said that Grangemouth would cease refinery operations during the second quarter of 2025 ahead of its conversion into an import terminal.

** Finland's Porvoo will carry out unspecified work at its Porvoo refinery this week and next, it said in a message posted to a regional site Jan. 28.

Separately, it said it would ensure sufficient staffing to maintain "safe operations" during a strike Feb. 3-8, Neste said Feb. 4, noting that operations are "mainly continuous" and a shutdown especially in winter "presents significant risks." "The strike is an exceptional circumstance and may possibly impact our product deliveries in Finland," Neste added. A union spokesperson also confirmed that Porvoo is in strike, which means there will be no new production, and the refinery will be run at a "minimum" to avoid damages, as the union's standard policy is "that all work related to health and safety is not included in the strike."

** Bulgaria's Neftohim (Neftokhim) refinery will carry out maintenance between Feb. 28 and May 6, Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyaskov told parliament.

** France's Donges refinery said Feb. 9 that it was in the process of halting a unit which could result in increased noise and flaring. It the last week of January its alkylation unit was back from maintenance.

The refinery had reported various outages in 2024. In February 2024 it fully halted operations with the restart of the various units lasting until July. In September it also halted some units after a hydrogen leak.

In a Feb. 5 presentation, the company CEO Patrick Pouyanne said that the refinery had had a "very poor performance" in 2024 and was expected to "run again from March." Trading sources have previously reported persistent outages of the fluid catalytic cracker unit over the last year.

** Maintenance of some process units was underway at Italy's Sannazzaro refinery, the company confirmed Jan. 28. Trading sources previously reported partial maintenance at the site was due to last for few more weeks until around mid-February. The refinery was expected to restart sooner but the work has been extended due to technical problems, sources said. The refinery carried out works in late 2024, between November and early December, as well as between June and early September.

** Production problems continue at Germany's Mineraloelraffinerie Oberrhein (MiRo) refinery, according to market sources Feb. 6. FCC output from the plant is still affected, boosting gasoline demand into Germany, sources said. Propylene supply is also affected, petrochemical sources said.

FCC output from the refinery has been impacted by an incident that led to the shutdown of one of the refinery's crude distillation units, market sources said in late January. The CDU unit, one of the three at the site, was halted Jan. 21. The refinery declined to comment.

Previously, the MiRo refinery was forced to halt a CDU in December 2022 after furnace damage triggered a technical glitch, which took the unit offline for a month.

** The Vohburg part of Germany's Bayernoil refinery is planning scheduled maintenance in March and April, according to market sources. The company was not available to comment. The planned maintenance comes after the refinery's other part - Neustadt - suffered an outage after a fire. Most units at Neustadt remain offline, the company said Jan. 24. According to sources the fire occurred in the mild hydrocracker. Bayernoil comprises the Vohburg and Neustadt sites, which are closely interconnected.

** A crude distillation unit at Turkey's Izmir refinery is back in operation after being closed following a fire last November, according to market sources Feb. 10. Tupras was not available to comment. Tupras said at the time that a fire broke out in one of the crude units at the refinery on Nov. 25 and it had subsequently been shut down.

** Israel's Bazan refinery was undergoing maintenance on one of its CDUs and other units which has been scheduled for Q1, market sources said Jan. 23, meaning it was running at reduced capacity. The units were expected to be back around the end of February and the refinery was due to be running at full capacity in March.

The company, which was not immediately available to comment, has previously said that it had postponed maintenance planned to be carried out in the fourth quarter of 2024 to Q1 2025. The maintenance includes the hydrocracker, the hydrogen production facilities, CDU 3 and related facilities.

The refinery has three crude refining facilities: 27,000 b/d crude refining plant 1; 57,000 b/d crude refining plant 3; and 113,000 b/d crude refining plant 4.

** Sonatrach's Augusta refinery in Sicily will be starting its planned maintenance Jan. 24, local media reported citing a company statement. The maintenance will last approximately three months and also includes a second shutdown in the last part of 2025, La Gazzetta wrote Jan. 23.

Augusta has been planning a major maintenance in the first half of 2025, due to last several months. The initial plan initially envisaged that the refinery would be halted for a month with the works resuming in the spring, although exact dates had yet to be confirmed.

** There was 'no major disruption' at France's Fos-sur-Mer refinery following an operational incident, the company said Feb. 10. Rhone Energies previously said on a local messenger platform that an 'operational incident' occurred at the refinery Feb. 8 due to inclement weather.

** A technical incident that occurred Feb. 7 at the Port Jerome-Gravenchon refinery in France had 'minor consequences on the normal operations', the company said Feb. 10. The incident did not affect the refinery's nominal throughput, it said. It had previously said on a local messenger platform that some units had carried out a 'safety shutdown' following the technical incident but the restart had commenced shortly after the shutdown. The units were due to be fully restarted Feb. 9. All units were now back in service, the company said Feb. 10.

Separately, an unspecified unit at the refinery has proceeded to halt operations of part of its equipment on Jan. 25, the refinery said on a local messenger platform.

** There has been a temporary unit malfunction at France's Gonfreville refinery, it said late Jan. 28. As a result, there could be increased noise, it said. The platform comprises a refinery and a petrochemical plant.

** A CDU unit at Turkey's Izmit is expected back after maintenance in late February-early March, according to market sources. The unit has been offline since early January, sources said. The company was not immediately available to comment. It had said previously that work on the crude oil and vacuum unit and desulfurizer units at Izmit scheduled for Q4 2024 has been postponed.

** The Bilbao refinery restarted its naphtha desulfurization Jan. 20, ahead of schedule, having halted it Jan. 13. The P2 platforming unit was scheduled to restart around Feb. 6, but this has not been confirmed by the company. The larger of its two crude distillation units, Crude unit 2, with 120,000 b/d capacity, was taken offline for eight days during January, for "market reasons" with a restart confirmed Jan. 17. The visbreaker was taken offline in October 2024 for market reasons.

Existing entries

** Germany's Burghausen refinery is scheduled to undergo maintenance work in 2025, according to market sources. The turnaround is likely to take place in the spring, they added. OMV has previously said that an outage at Burghausen's crude distillation unit affected its third-quarter utilization. The unit was halted after a leak on Aug. 7, with the maintenance shutdown lasting until mid-September.

** Gunvor is considering mothballing its Rotterdam refinery after undertaking an economic shutdown of the intermediate processing plant at the site in late November, it said Dec. 12. "After assessing various options, Gunvor has decided to consult the Works Council of the Rotterdam refinery with the intention to mothball the processing units and to continue to operate the site as a trading terminal," the company said in a statement. Gunvor has taken the decision after a "comprehensive review of the refinery's financial outlook in the context of prevailing market conditions, in Europe and globally," it said.

The Rotterdam site, which currently produces gasoline from feedstocks, is no longer processing crude oil after Gunvor closed the two crude processing units, one in 2019 and the other in 2020, and renamed the site Gunvor Energy Rotterdam from Gunvor Petroleum Rotterdam to reflect its move to the energy transition.

** Greek refiner Motor Oil Hellas expects to complete repairs and return Corinth to full operations in Q3 2025, after one of the refinery's crude distillation units was taken offline Sept. 17. It expects to maintain capacity between 65%-80% of the total nominal capacity during the repairs by utilizing its other crude distillation unit and upgrading units. The company said in late November that Corinth was currently operating at 75%-77% of crude capacity and reaching 80% some days, compared with 65%-66% at the end of September, with feedstocks processing running at above 70% of capacity.

** The Iplom Busalla refinery in northwest Italy is planning its next general maintenance in the autumn of 2025. Separately, the refinery has increased its capacity after receiving a government authorization to reach 2.19 million mt/year and following upgrades. Its processing capacity will be over 2 million mt in the current year, it said.

** Shell will begin preparations for the conversion of its Rhineland refinery in Germany in Q1 2025 with the aim of halting crude processing at the Wesseling facility in 2025. "The conversion is a complex process that takes place in a multi-stage process," it said in an e-mailed statement. The shutdown of crude processing at Wesseling is related to the establishment of a base oil distillation unit for the production of high-quality base oils, it also said.

The company has previously announced that it would stop crude processing at Wesseling by 2025 and would convert the hydrocracker at the site into a base oil production unit. The Rhineland refinery, which has over 17 million mt/year of crude processing capacity, comprises the Wesseling (south) and Godorf (north) sites. Wesseling processes 7.5 million mt/year. Crude processing will continue at Godorf.

** Italian refiner Eni said October 2024 that it plans to begin construction of its bio-refining project in Livorno "presumably by the end of the month" after it receives the project's approval and the building permit. The 500,000 mt/year biorefinery is expected to be operational by 2026. Three new plants will be built, that will produce HVO diesel, HVO naphtha and bio-LPG from renewable raw materials. The areas where the three new plants are planned to be built are awaiting the start of construction, the company said. In the meantime, the motor fuels production line will be kept running. The refiner first earmarked the site for conversion in 2022 and preemptively suspended crude oil processing in January 2024. It has stopped importing crude oil and initiated the shutdown of the lubricants production lines and the topping plant.

** Germany's Heide carried out maintenance in the autumn of 2024. Major maintenance at the refinery is carried out every five years, according to the company. It last carried out partial maintenance in 2022, and major maintenance in September 2020, which has been postponed from 2019.

** Helleniq Energy plans maintenance at its Elefsina refinery in the first half of 2025 and at Aspropyrgos toward the end of 2025.

** At Poland's Plock, the residue hydrodesulfurization unit remains offline. The unit, known as HOG, was halted in September 2022 after a fire and has been offline since. In November 2023, Orlen launched a tender to modernize the unit.

** The last major turnaround at Spain's Tarragona was in September 2022 and the next is slated for 2028.

** Orlen Unipetrol performs a turnaround at the Litvinov refinery every four years, with the last ones having been in 2020 and 2024.

** Croatia's Rijeka turnaround was completed in April 2024. The previous regular turnaround was in 2019, the company said. The next will take place in five years.

** Galp's Sines is planning to hold its next major turnaround in 2025. This could coincide with the start-up of its new advanced biofuels and green hydrogen units, which are about to start construction for the 2025 start-ups targeted.

** BP's Castellon refinery concluded a major maintenance in December 2023. The next maintenance of this scale is likely to be toward 2029.

Upgrades

Existing entries

** France's Donges refinery is testing the new hydrogen unit SMR which is part of its upgrade. The unit, which is built and operated by Air Liquide, will provide the necessary hydrogen for the functioning of the VGO hydrotreater.

It will be tested initially at 40% and subsequently at 100% in January after starting in a test mode in early December. The company has previously said that the new units will start in the spring of 2025.

The upgrade includes the building of a new VGO hydrotreater unit and a new hydrogen unit, which will provide the hydrogen necessary for the functioning of the hydrotreater.

The upgrade has been conditional upon a railway bypass, which will enable rail traffic to bypass the refinery site. The bypass was commissioned in October 2022.

** MOL said in its Q3 report that it expected mechanical completion of the delayed coker at the Rijeka refinery in the fourth quarter. An upgrade project on Croatia's Rijeka refinery is around 90% complete, MOL has said previously. Work on the upgrade project, involving construction of a new residue complex including a delayed coker, started in 2020 after a final investment decision in 2019.

** Greece's Helleniq said November 2024 that the expansion by 60,000 mt/year of the polypropylene plant is expected to be completed in the next two years. The company is expanding its polypropylene production unit at Thessaloniki to 300,000 mt/year.

** Lithuania's Orlen Lietuva refinery in Mazeikiai said in August 2023 that after starting construction of the residue conversion unit, also known as its bottom-of-the-barrel investment, the reactor, a key component of the hydrocracking unit was transported to the refinery. The project is slated for completion by 2025. Following the startup of the hydrocracker, Orlen Lietuva will be able to produce a similar volume of fuels from 8 million mt/year of crude throughput as it currently does at a throughput of 10 million mt/year. It also said that during its autumn maintenance in 2024 it will carry out "some important work for ongoing Bottom of the Barrel project."

** In 2020, Serbia's Pancevo launched a delayed coker. It is currently carrying out the third stage of its modernization, which includes a reconstruction of the FCC unit and a construction of an ETBE unit. It started in 2021.

** Rompetrol is making progress on the cogeneration plant project at the Petromidia refinery. The project, which started in May 2021, will ensure the refinery's energy needs "exclusively from the cogeneration plant." The new facility will generate approximately 80 MW of electricity.

** The new fluid catalytic cracker and propylene splitter complex remain under construction at Greece's Motor Oil Hellas Corinth refinery. The new propylene splitter at Greece's Motor Oil Hellas Corinth refinery is expected by 2025. Its capacity has been raised to 160,000 mt/year from the previously planned 120,000 mt/year.

** ExxonMobil's Fawley refinery on the UK south coast is on track to complete a major upgrade project in 2025 which will enable it to increase ULSD output, the company said. The project consists of a new diesel hydrotreater HD 10, which will result in the refinery increasing its current ULSD output by 38,000 b/d, or 40%, as well as a new hydrogen unit with 55 MMcf daily capacity. Apart from the two new units, the project includes expanding the jet hydrotreater HD 7 where a bigger reactor was installed at the end of 2023 and also adding a new reactor to the residue hydrotreater later this year.

** Turkey's Tupras is to invest $256 million in developing propylene splitter capacity at its Izmir refinery and its Izmit refinery. The company said the new capacity is aimed at producing high value-added chemical products and reducing Scope 3 emissions from the two refineries and is being undertaken "within the scope of" Tupras' Strategic Transition Plan announced in November 2021.

Separately, Turkish construction group Tekfen Insaat and HMB Hallesche Mitteldeutsche Bau have signed an EPC contract with Tupras to construct a new sulfur recovery unit at the Kirikkale refinery. Tupras' upgrade plans for its four refineries include new sulfur units at Izmit, Izmir and Kirikkale. Tupras is also carrying out a revamp of the FCC unit at Izmit.

** Puertollano's petrochemical area is due to bring online a new production plant to output 25,000 mt/year of high and low-density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE) with a recycled plastic content of 10% and 80%. Current capacity for the plastic is 16,000 mt/year. Puertollano will also bring online in 2024 a new unit to produce 15,000 mt/year of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE).

** Repsol is planning a new 27,000 mt/year cross-linkable polyethylene (XLPE) plant at Tarragona that will be commissioned in 2025.

** Orlen Unipetrol is in the process of constructing a heat recovery unit at the Czech Kralupy refinery which is aimed to increase its energy efficiency by using the flue gas waste heat which previously was released into the atmosphere.

** Poland's Orlen launched a tender for a contractor to modernize the gudron (residue) hydrodesulfurization (HOG) unit at its Plock refinery. The upgrade, which will enable cascade catalyst dosage, is scheduled to start in Q3 2024 and will last until Q4, 2026. Orlen launched the HOG unit at Plock, which has a capacity of 1.8 million mt/year, in 1999. The HOG was halted in September 2022 after a fire and has been since offline.

Poland's PKN is also building a visbreaking unit at Plock, which will have the capacity to produce 200,000 mt/year of diesel. Ongoing modernization of the hydrocracking and diesel hydrodesulfurization units will also increase diesel production capacity. PKN Orlen has bought a license and base design from US engineering company KBR for a potential bottom-of-the-barrel project. If PKN takes a final investment decision, it will construct a production complex using solvent de-asphalting and fluid catalytic cracking technologies. PKN Orlen has signed a contract with Linde to build a new oxygen and nitrogen production unit at Plock. The unit will produce 38,500 cu m/hour of oxygen and 75,000 cu m/hour of nitrogen, supplying gas feedstock for the new Olefin III complex and other installations at Plock. The project is due to be completed by the start of 2025.

** OMV Petrom will build a new unit for aromatics products at its Petrobrazi refinery, with a processing capacity of around 1,500 mt/d of reformed gasoline. The existing aromatics unit, which started production in 1961, will be replaced over 2023-2025, and the new unit will be put in operation in 2026.

** Poland's PKN Orlen is working on a hydrocracking unit with a capacity of 400,000 mt/year and an oil product loading terminal in Gdansk. Both investments are scheduled to be commissioned by mid-2025. The hydrocracking base oils project will help the company diversify into second- and third-generation base oils.

** Orlen Unipetrol is expanding the steam cracker at Litvinov. The company plans to increase its total petrochemical production capacity to 1.4 million mt/year by 2030 from 900,000 mt/year. Separately, McDermott International has been awarded a contract for engineering, procurement and construction management services for an upgrade of the hydrocracker at the Litvinov refinery.

** Bosnia's Brod refinery has started construction of a bitumen unit. The refinery has been offline since 2019 and has been expected to restart once it is connected to a gas pipeline, allowing it to switch to gas-fired power operations. The line was connected in December 2021, but the plant has remained offline. A solar power facility at the plant has also been built to help power operations.

** Azerbaijan's state oil company Socar is looking to expand the capacity of its 212,000 b/d Star refinery in Turkey. Socar said it could expand Star's capacity to 13 million mt/year (261,000 b/d) by means of "flexibilities" in the refinery's design.

** Bulgaria's Burgas refinery has awarded a contract to US Lummus Technology for a 280,000 mt/year polypropylene plant.

** 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.

Launches

New and revised entries

** A project for a new greenfield refinery at Porto Romano in Albania will not be going ahead, Helmut Mayrhofer at Austria-based consultancy Larkalis told S&P Global Commodity Insights. Larkalis was leading an international consortium working on the project, set to build the refinery in the port town of Durres. The refinery's potential location on the Adriatic Sea had been expected to provide it with easy access to a wide variety of feedstocks, Commodity Insights reported previously.

However, the only available location close to the new port of Porto Romano was not suitable and also not possible from an environmental point of view, Mayrhofer said Jan. 29.

Existing entries

** Turkey's state upstream operator TPAO has been given a budget to conduct studies for the development of two possible new refineries in Turkey's east Mediterranean provinces of Adana and Hatay, according to entries in Turkey's 2025 Investment Program, which was approved in January 2025 by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. The budget listing gives no further details and neither TPAO nor Turkey's energy ministry responded to requests for further information.

** Turkey's Ersan Petrol is still hopeful that its plans for a 1.4 million mt/year refinery at Kahramanmaras in southeast Turkey will be able to go ahead despite repeated delays and a difficult investment climate. Project coordinator Cenk Pala said Ersan was in talks with prospective partners and sources of finance for the project and hopes to start work on the FEED study this year. The refinery is planned for a 300,000 sq m site in Kahramanmaras which holds a defunct mini refinery that will be dismantled. A pre-feasibility study by Axens has defined the configuration and capacity of the plant which will produce mainly Euro 5 diesel, Euro 5 gasoline, jet and bitumen.

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