Russia's Lukoil restoring cracker at NORSI refinery, gasoline output rising
Russia's second-largest oil producer Lukoil is restoring operations of its catalytic cracker complex, ramping up gasoline output after the unit's breakdown on Nov. 13, two industry sources said Friday.
NORSI oil refinery said on Wednesday it has been working in accordance with the planned operational schedule, while the catalytic cracker Units 1 and 2 were working “within the planned operational program of the enterprise.”
The sources, citing operational data of the plant, said a catalytic cracker unit (KK-2) - idle since the end of September due to planned maintenance - restarted operations after Nov. 19.
They also said that another unit, KK-1, which was stopped due to outage on Nov. 13, as sources have said, also began production but below nominal capacity.
The capacity of the KK-1 catalytic cracking unit is about 5,710 metric tpd of oil. The unit allows NORSI to produce about 25% of its motor gasoline or about 1.2 MMtpy .
The KK-1 unit was idled for maintenance from January to June this year.
NORSI refines about 16 MMtpy of crude, or 5.8% of Russia's total refined crude, a top four among Russian oil refineries. The refinery suffered drone attacks earlier this year.
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