Refineries in need of one billion-dollar investments

The Romanian refineries require investments of approximately one billion dollars in retooling in order to meet the European standards, Antonio Cambiotti, chairman of the Romanian Petroleum Association ASPetrol, told the “Quality in the oil industry” roundtable ASPetrol organised with Ziarul Financiar as media partner. sleadend
anian refineries need investments of one billion dollars; the question is how are these investments to be recovered: from the sales on the domestic market, from exports?” Cambiotti wondered. In other words, the point is whether the market, which sees only a handful of Euro fuel consumers, could or would bear the costs.
Still, Romanian companies say they have no other way out. SNP Petrom, the largest company on the Romanian market announced it was running an investment programme estimated at about $600 million for retooling its two refineries – Arpechim Pitesti and Petrobrazi Ploiesti.
“So far we have invested some 30% of the total funds scheduled for investments throughout 2001-2005. The money is destined to fund quality assurance works, in order to make Euro 3 fuels, but also to improve the technological performance and making the company efficient,” said Dumitru Ferecus, general manager of the Oil and Gas Processing Department of SNP Petrom. The Rompetrol representative marketing manager Dan Ionescu said his company was planning to continue investments in order to increase the fuel quality, as well.
Romania has ten refineries, five of which are high-capacity ones: Arpechim, Petrobrazi (both Petrom-held), Petromidia (Rompetrol’s), Petrotel (LukOil’s) and Rafo Onesti. The refineries held by SNP Petrom have some 8 million tonnes of crude oil a year in processing capacity.