December 5 (SeeNews) - Russia's Gazprom Neft has said it plans to start operating the new deep conversion complex (DCC) at the Pancevo refinery of its Serbian subsidiary NIS [BEL:NIIS] in the third quarter of 2019.
The DCC will have an annual production capacity of 700 million tonnes and the bulk of its output will consist of diesel fuel, Gazprom Neft said on Monday in the latest edition of its corporate magazine Sibirskaya Neft.
Moreover, the new unit will allow NIS to fully meet demand for petroleum coke in Serbia, Gazprom Neft said.
The Russian company started the construction of the DCC at the Pancevo refinery in October. Back then, Gazprom Neft said it plans to invest 300 million euro ($356 million) in the project, which will allow the conversion rate— a key indicator of a refinery’s operational efficiency— to reach 99.2%, while the volume of high-quality diesel fuel will increase by more than 38%.
The project is a key part of the second phase of a major programme for boosting the refining capacity of NIS which Gazprom Neft has been implementing since 2009. The Serbian company completed the first phase of modernising its Pancevo refinery in 2012 when it built a light MHT/DHT hydrocracking and hydrotreating complex, allowing the plant to commence production of Euro-5 fuel.
Gazprom Neft controls a 56.15% stake in the capital of NIS, while the Serbian government owns a 29.87% shareholding interest.
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