As the Russian group has come to bring one third of the company’s revenue, the gloomiest scenario would be for Lukoil to shut down its refinery of Ploiesti, after its exit from Hungary and Ukraine.
“Currently, it is very difficult for a company with production in Europe to contemplate mega-investments. This is how we came to close this topic after a period of talks that lasted for almost 15 years,” said Gabriel Daraban, commercial manager at Oil Terminal. He was involved from the very beginning in the development of the project related to the oil pipeline between Constanta harbor and Central Europe, and then the scaled back version, to Serbia.
Oil Terminal’s business has been seriously hurt by the falling fuel consumption in Europe and the closedown of refineries RAFO (in 2008) and Arpechim (2010). Moreover, Oil Terminal was dealt a heavy blow in late 2008, when group Rompetrol moved its oil imports on its own terminal.
The expansion of Oil Terminal’s client base through a pipeline that would have secured a transit of 5-7.5 million tons of crude oil per annum would have been a breath of fresh air for the company, which has seen its revenue and profit go down constantly in recent years.
The second largest refinery still operating, Petrobrazi, which belongs to OMV Petrom, was resized so that it can entirely process the domestic oil production and it no longer needs imports, hence Oil Terminal’s services.
Oil Terminal’s revenue now depends on the Petrotel refinery owned by Lukoil. However, the future of the small refinery near Ploiesti is uncertain as the Russian group invested massively in a much bigger refinery, in Burgas.
Should the refinery be shut down, Oil Terminal would have to attract clients strictly for its warehousing service, where it has a capacity of 1.5 million cubic meters. However, interest would be low on this segment as well.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)