HN: Unipetrol to suspend refinery operation due to lack of oil

Prague, Oct 22 (CTK) - Petrochemical group Unipetrol, the largest oil processing company in the Czech Republic, will suspend production in its refinery in Kralupy nad Vltavou due to a lack of crude oil caused by a cut in supplies via the IKL pipeline, the daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) said Monday.

According to HN, the company lacks crude oil for several days of operation.

"Deliveries to refineries of Ceska rafinerska (a subsidiary of Unipetrol) have been halted as of October 20 owing to limited capacities of IKL and TAL oil pipelines. The stoppage will last until the end of the month," HN quoted Unipetrol spokesman Mikulas Duda as saying.

Unipetrol will make use of the shutdown and will carry out a regular maintenance, which was originally planned for November, HN said.

"The Kralupy refinery will be operating until October 25, when a planned shutdown and maintenance will start, to last a week and a half," Unipetrol spokesman Mikulas Duda told CTK.

If the lack of oil continues, it may also affect the operation of Unipetrol's other refinery in Litvinov, HN noted.

"We are analysing possible impacts on the operation of the Litvinov refinery," Duda said.

According to analysts, unless the firm manages to solve the situation by increased supplies via the Druzhba pipeline, it will have an impact on its business results.

Supplies via Druzhba are coming in the contracted amount, Duda said.

According to HN, the problem with purchase via IKL stems the fact that the TAL pipeline from Terst, Italy, to which IKL is connected, does not have free capacity and cannot supply more oil to Unipetrol than the company has ordered.

Czech refineries have been using the possibility of buying more crude oil than ordered. They have exceeded the original order by 1 million tonnes this year.

The IKL pipeline was built in the 1990s as an alternative to Druzhba, through which the Czech Republic has been receiving most of oil supplies until last year. This year, the ratio turned to the benefit of IKL for the first time in history, HN noted.