OAO Lukoil subsidiary Lukoil Neftochim Burgas AD has secured a €420 million line of credit from five international banks to finance the modernization of its Burgas, Bulgaria, refinery along the Black Sea.
In addition to Italian export credit agency Instituto per i Servizi Assicurativi del Commercio Estero (SACE)—which will cover 95% of the 10-year loan—banks providing the credit line include Societe Generale, ING Bank, BNP Paribas, and UniCredit SPA, according to SACE.
The Burgas modernization project is being executed under a lump-sum turnkey contract for the engineering, procurement, and construction of Phase 1 of a heavy residue hydrocracking complex to be built at the refinery that Lukoil let to Technip in January 2012, says SACE.
The contract, worth more than €900 million, covers the detail engineering, procurement of equipment and material, construction, precommissioning, and commissioning of a 2.5 million-tonne/year vacuum residue hydrocracker based on Axens H-Oil process, Technip said in a Jan. 25, 2012, release.
Implementation of the project will allow the refinery to increase output of Euro 5 diesel fuel by 1.2 million tpy as well as to cease production of high-sulfur fuel oil, Lukoil said in a separate Jan. 25, 2012, release.
The key element of the new complex, which is slated for commissioning in January 2015, is a tar hydrocracker with a planned capacity of 2.5 million tpy, according to Lukoil.
