Polish Oil Company Hopes Lithuanian Refinery to Become Profitable This Year

Text of report in English by Polish news agency PAP

Warsaw, 26 February: PKN Orlen hopes that the pipeline carrying crude oil to its Lithuanian Mazeikiu refinery will be repaired and supplies will resume, but even if this does not happen the refinery will become profitable before the end of this year.

“We expect that the pipeline (..) will again be operational,” said PKN Orlen CEO Piotr Kownacki at a press conference here Monday [26 February]. He did not give any details.

The Mazeikiu refinery now operates at 3/4 of its capacity from before the fire that seriously damaged installations, Kownacki also said.

He announced that the company would present a new strategy, accounting for its acquisition of the Mazeikiu refinery, in the middle of this year.

The company expects to gain access to its own crude oil deposits later this year. “Last year we examined a dozen-odd proposals in this field and selected a few of the most promising ones. Now we proceed to final talks on these few,” Kownacki revealed.

“Our first choice is to join a company that already drills oil rather than buy an undeveloped deposit and start production on our own,” he added.

He confirmed earlier reports according to which PKN Orlen was primarily interested in oil deposits located in the Caspian Sea region, especially in Kazakhstan. North Africa and Iraq were also under consideration.

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