The move is part of Rompetrol’s aim of strengthening its position on the biofuels market, which recently saw the company start to distribute Super Ethanol E85 from its own brand and Dyneff brand filling stations in France.
Rompetrol hopes eventually to establish its own biodiesel production installation at its Petromidia refinery, which will involve investments estimated at $18 million.
Rompetrol Rafinare’s biodiesel requirements will amount to 2,500 tons per month, in line with diesel fuel deliveries to the Romanian market. Until the company’s own biodiesel facility is completed, the fuel will be sourced from selected European suppliers and the domestic market.
Rompetrol said that an important step to ensuring diesel fuel quality at its Petromidia plant was achieved last year due to the commissioning of diesel in line blending equipment, a greenfield investment worth close to $7 million, which also allows for biodiesel blending in a controlled amount.
Although Rompetrol Rafinare is currently producing Euro 4-compliant fuels, as a result of achieved investments, the company has aligned diesel output with the Euro 5 standard, which will be compulsory in Romania starting 2009. Starting this year, the refinery will be able to make its entire output Euro 5-compliant.
Over the coming two years, Rompetrol Rafinare has scheduled investments totaling $250 million. The subsidiary aims to boost refining capacities up to five million tons per year.
Rompetrol said that, since it took over the Petromidia refinery in 2001, it has outlaid around $225 million, of which $40 million were direct environmental protection investments.
