Russia's NORSI refinery may halve high-octane gasoline output after outages
(Reuters) - Lukoil's NORSI oil refinery in Nizhny Novgorod may halve high-octane gasoline output after an emergency stoppage at one of two plant's catalytic cracking unit, industry sources said on Monday.
The NORSI oil refinery, one of the largest in Russia, halted a unit after an incident, oil company Lukoil said on Friday without providing further details.
Industry sources said there were two incidents earlier this month at gasoline-producing units at the plant, which can process around 17 million metric tons of oil per year (340,000 barrels per day).
They said a catalytic cracking unit with a capacity of 6,300 tons per day was halted on Jan. 4, and there was also an outage at a reformer with a daily capacity of 3,000 tons per day on Jan. 7.
Two sources said the plant will halve production of high-octane gasoline. One of the sources said Lukoil will be forced to buy gasoline on the market for its own petrol stations.
"The breakdown is serious... There will be a reduction in production of AI-95, AI-98 (gasoline grades) this month," another source said.
Russia's energy ministry said on Monday that it was working with oil producers to ensure an uninterrupted supply of fuel to the domestic market during the period of plant's maintenance.
NORSI produced 4.51 million tons of gasoline in January - November 2023.
According to industry data, Russia has stockpiles of 1.982 million tons of gasoline, which will help prevent fuel shortages on the domestic market.
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