Patriciu''s $260m investment plans for Petromidia

Rompetrol group, the second-largest player on the oil market, led by businessman Dinu Patriciu, holds an investment plan worth 260 million dollars to boost the capacity of the Petromidia refinery by 30% by early 2008 and to cut down fivefold the level of toxic gas that is issued, state the group”s representatives.

The investment plan will be financed both from the group”s own sources, and from funds attracted from outside the company, the above-quoted sources explain.

The processing capacity of Petromidia, one of the largest refineries on the Romanian market, will rise from 3.8 million tonnes in 2005 to more than 5 million tonnes over the next three years.

Petromidia, currently undergoing revision, is thus trying to speed up the growth of its production of oil products and in this way boost its revenues from their sale.

The programme is being carried out in a context whereby over the last 15 years Romania has seen some of its refineries either closing or cutting down production, while other were halted for a time and then restarted. Petromidia only refines Ural-type crude oil from import, and can process crude oil with a high concentration of sulphur, which is cheaper than sweet crude oil, group representatives continued.

Another of the group”s targets is to reach the 10 ppm (parts per million) standard by 2008, from 50 ppm at present. The company this year finalised investments necessary for the production of Euro 5 diesel oil, and in this case the 10 ppm standard has already been reached. It”s a standard that will hopefully be extended across the entire refinery. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro