Lisichansk Refinery | |||
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Lisichansk Refinery (CJSC “LINIK”) is TNK-BP’s key refining asset in Ukraine. The refinery is considered the newest in the country. Its first stage was commissioned in October 1976. Located in the town of Lisichansk at Ukraine’s eastern border, the refinery was designed to supply dark products for Donbass thermal heating and power plants and meet the demand of Stavropol and Krasnodar regions for light products, i.e. gasolines and diesel fuel.
In the early 1990s the refinery was among the leaders of domestic oil processing. Lisichansk refinery processed around 22 million tons of crude in 1990 and 23.7 million tons in 1991, which was the record figure in the plant’s history. However, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the throughput began dwindling rapidly, and the annual volume of processed crude never exceeded 5 million tons after 1994.
By that time the refinery had accumulated debt to local and foreign creditors and the Ukrainian government. Starting with the middle of the previous decade, irregular operations and emergency shutdowns had become routine. For instance, it processed as little as 531,000 tons of feedstock in 1999 while the forced downtime that year amounted to 326 days.
The refinery entered an upturn in 2000. In July, 2000, TNK (Tyumen Oil Company), a heritage company of TNK-BP, became a strategic investor in the plant by acquiring a controlling stake of 67.41% in OJSC “Lisichansknefteorgsintez”. Production facilities of Lisichansk refinery are currently owned by CJSC “LINIK”, a member of the TNK-BP Group of companies in Ukraine.
Over a short period of time, Lisichansk refinery has transformed into the leader of Ukrainian refining industry. Under TNK-BP’s management, the refinery throughput in 2004 amounted to 6.6 millions tons, the largest volume processed in Ukraine that year. In 2007, Lisichansk Refinery pioneered Ukrainian production of diesel fuel with a sulfur content of 50 ppm, which conforms to Euro-4 standard. Lisichansk refinery is also the only producer of polypropylene in Ukraine. The enterprise is currently capable of processing around 8 million tons of oil feedstock annually to supply the domestic and export markets with quality petroleum products.