MOSCOW (MRC) -- Polish oil refiner PKN Orlen, said it would increase monthly crude oil purchases from Saudi Aramco to 400,000 from 300,000 tons as part of its efforts to diversify supply, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Poland’s biggest oil refiner, which buys most of its oil from Russia via pipeline, has been receiving oil from Saudi Aramco since 2016.
"This is another step on the way to secure work of our installations within the group and to increase Poland’s energy security," PKN Orlen Chief Executive Daniel Obajtek said in a statement.
The company said that the Arabian Light crude will be refined in its facilities in Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.
Seaborne oil supplies from sources other than Russia helped PKN Orlen and its smaller rival Lotos keep their refineries operating in April and May when deliveries of Russian oil via the Druzbha pipeline were suspended due to contamination.
PKN said that since the start of 2018 it has concluded spot purchases of crude oil from Angola, Nigeria, Norway and the United States.
As MRC informed earlier, in H1 September 2019, Honeywell announced that PKN ORLEN had licensed the UOP MaxEne process, which can increase production of ethylene and aromatics and improve the flexibility of gasoline production. The project, for the PKN ORLEN facility in Plock, Poland, currently is in the basic engineering stage. Honeywell UOP, a leading provider of technologies for the oil and gas industry, first commercialized the UOP MaxEne process in 2013. The process enables refiners and petrochemical producers to direct molecules within the naphtha feed to the processes that deliver the greatest value and improve yields of fuels and petrochemicals.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
PKN ORLEN would be the first refining and petrochemicals company in Europe to use the Honeywell UOP MaxEne technology for molecule management of a naphtha stream to produce high-quality products including olefins, aromatics and gasoline.
MRC