Norwegian oil began to arrive at Naftan
Yesterday, a train of 59 tank cars with a total volume of about 3.5 thousand tons arrived at the "Novopolotsk" station from the port of Klaipeda by rail at 8:10 AM. The entire batch of Norwegian oil (86 thousand tons), delivered by the vessel Breiviken, is expected to arrive at the enterprise within the next two weeks.
"The oil covered the distance from the Norwegian coast, where it was loaded onto the tanker, to our enterprise, which is 2.3 thousand km, in less than 7 days. The first train from the port of Klaipeda reached the 'Novopolotsk' station within a day. Certain technological operations for unloading the oil and preparing it for processing are starting now, and immediately after that, we will begin processing it. The rest of the tanker batch will be delivered rhythmically, with one to two trains per day," said Alexander Demidov, General Director of Naftan OJSC.
According to him, the Norwegian grade of North Sea oil received by the enterprise is called Johan Sverdrup. It has been produced on the Norwegian continental shelf on an industrial scale since the fourth quarter of 2019. "The quality of this oil is quite interesting. In the world, this grade is already called a competitor to Russian Urals. It has entered the market quite confidently due to its quality characteristics. For example, the sulfur content in this oil is half that of Urals, and the yield of light oil products during its processing, as laboratory analysis has shown, is slightly higher than when processing Urals. This means that the potential and prospects for this grade, in my opinion, are very serious compared to Urals," stated the head of the company.
According to Alexander Demidov, it will be possible to speak more concretely about the future prospects of using Norwegian oil after all analyses are completed. "We have taken this grade for the first time, now we will work through all aspects, its processing will begin at technological units, after which we will make technological conclusions regarding further work. In our opinion, this is a good grade. The aspect that the raw material is purchased without intermediaries, directly from one of the companies involved in the oil production project on the Norwegian shelf, is also important. Moreover, we have established good relations with suppliers," the CEO added.
Alexander Demidov emphasized that the enterprise is tasked with supplying alternative raw materials on a systematic basis in any case. "This is what we are currently doing. We have a database of technical grades, and we are currently optimizing it, looking at new grades that appear on the market, identifying the most optimal ones from the perspective of technological parameters and economics. Based on this, we will make further decisions on the long-term program," the head summarized.
After the completion of the necessary operations for incoming oil quality control, the first tons arrived in Naftan's reservoirs.
Russia halted oil supplies to Belarus on January 1 due to the failure to reach an agreement on price. Belarusian refineries (Mozyr Refinery and Naftan) reduced their processing to a technological minimum. On January 4, Belneftekhim announced an agreement with a Russian company to supply the first batch of oil purchased at a price without a premium. The government stated that all possible alternative supply options were being studied.