February 22 (SeeNews) - Romania's top oil and gas group, OMV Petrom [BSE:SNP], said on Wednesday that it is investing 60 million euro ($62.9 million) in a new unit at Petrobrazi refinery, based on polyfuels technology developed by French company Axens.
The new unit, expected to become fully operational at the beginning of 2019, allows the conversion of LPG components into gasoline and middle distillates using a catalytic process, OMV Petrom said in a press release.
The construction of the new unit is set to start later this year.
"The implementation of the polyfuels project, which uses innovative technologies to increase gasoline and diesel production, will give us a competitive advantage through increased output of high value products (white products) and a more flexible production structure," OMV Petrom executive board member responsible for Downstream Oil Neil Anthony Morgan said.
The new unit will allow for a shift in refinery production of up to 50,000 tonnes of gasoline and middle distillates from LPG components. The overall refinery capacity will remain at 4.5 million tonnes per year.
Investments made by OMV Petrom in the Petrobrazi refinery in Ploiesti, in southern Romania, since the refinery's privatisation in 2005 total 1.2 billion euro. With a refining capacity of 4.5 million tonnes per year, Petrobrazi can process the entire crude production of OMV Petrom in Romania.
OMV Petrom posted a 1.038 billion lei ($241 million/228 million euro) net profit in 2016, recovering from a 690 million lei loss in the previous year.
It expects capital expenditure for 2017 to be around 800 million euro, about 40% higher than a year earlier, with some 85% dedicated to the upstream segment. In 2016, the group cut investments by 34% to 2.57 billion lei.
Blue-chip OMV Petrom was trading 2.54% higher at 0.3025 lei by 1427 CET on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
(1 euro=4.5217 lei)