The commencement of production at the facility marks the end of the upgrade project at the Sines and Matosinhos refineries, Galp Energia said.
Prior to the production stage, the company has commissioned the 585 sub-systems installed at the Sines refinery, incorporated the systems in the hydrocracking complex in the third quarter of 2012, and conducted many related tests.
Galp Energia implemented stringent quality control systems throughout the project and mainly in the commissioning phase, since it was necessary for the start-up of the operations and in maintaining the highest levels of safety.
The hydrocracker, which has a daily processing capacity of 43,000 barrels of heavy vacuum gasoil, is currently operating at normal processing conditions and achieved a commercial production level with an utilisation rate over 60%.
The company is expecting production stabilisation at the maximum capacity in the current quarter, while capacity utilisation rate will be dependent on the optimal utilisation of the system.
Galp Energia undertook the refineries upgrade project at a total investment of about €1.4bn, to increase the output of diesel over fuel oil, to meet the market demand and increase company’s profitability from the refining system.
