On Saturday, 13 October there was an unplanned and unforeseeable outage in production at Unipetrol RPA due to an accident on a field burner of the heavy fuel oil gasification unit (called the partial oxidation unit, POX). For this reason, in addition to the POX unit also some other units such as ammonia, urea, OXO alcohols, polyethylene and polypropylene, which had already been restarted after a planned shutdown, had to be shut down. The POX unit produces hydrogen that is required for the operation of the above units.Prague, 16 October 2007 – Intensive work is currently under way to remedy the consequences of the accident, together with activities focused on putting the equipment back into operation. At the same time a Unipetrol expert team is analysing in detail the possible causes of this extraordinary event. Although we are making our best effort to minimise its effects on our business relationships with customers we are afraid that UNIPETROL RPA may have to reduce its supplies of goods. The date on which the units will be put back into operation is expected to be known some time next week.
The failure will have no impact on the date on which the operation of the ethylene unit is to be started (Unipetrol RPA).
In connection with this accident and lack of hydrogen from the POX unit also the operating mode of Česká rafinérská’s Litvínov refinery has been adjusted so that the semi-products from crude processing are now stored in storage facilities at the Litvínov refinery or transported for processing to the Kralupy nad Vltavou refinery. Česká rafinérská’s Litvínov production facilities were, similarly as some of Unipetrol RPA’s units, being gradually restarted from 9 October after a shutdown that had commenced on 4 September 2007. Česká rafinérská is now taking hydrogen from other suppliers with a view to resuming motor fuel production at the Litvínov refinery as soon as possible.
UNIPETROL is a group of companies operating in the petrochemical industry in the Czech Republic. In 2005 UNIPETROL became part of PKN ORLEN Group, the largest downstream oil company in Central Europe. UNIPETROL primarily focuses on crude oil processing, fuels distribution and petrochemical production. In all these areas UNIPETROL group is one of leading players in both the Czech and Central European markets. In 2006 UNIPETROL reported revenues of CZK 95 billion with a net profit of CZK 1.6 billion. The UNIPETROL Group has about 4,000 employees.
Contact:
Michaela Lagronová
Spokesperson
Unipetrol, a.s.
GSM: +420 602 304 708
E-mail: michaela.lagronova@unipetrol.cz
www.unipetrol.cz