Petrotel Lukoil Refinery is one of the largest

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

oil refineries An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefie ...

and one of the largest in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

, located in Ploieşti,

Prahova County Prahova County () is a county ( județ) of Romania, in the historical region Muntenia, with the capital city at Ploiești. Demographics In 2011, it had a population of 762,886 and the population density was 161/km². It is Romania's third mos ...

. Its main activity is the processing of

n and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n oil, but a separate unit is specialised in

biodiesel Biodiesel is a form of diesel fuel derived from plants or animals and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made by chemically reacting lipids such as animal fat (tallow), soybean oil, or some other vegetable oil with ...

production and another unit specialises in energy production. Russian oil is transported by

oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crud ...

s from the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port, unloaded at an

oil terminal An oil terminal (also called a tank farm, tankfarm, oil installation or oil depot) is an industrial facility for the storage of oil, petroleum and petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obt ...

located in the Port of Constanţa, and transported to the refinery by rail or by a underground pipeline that links the refinery to the port. In 2004, the refinery underwent a major modernization that reduced the production capacity of 3.5 million tonnes/year to 2.4 million tonnes/year but made the refinery more efficient, with a higher percentage of use. The refinery also has a biodiesel producing capacity of 100,000 tonnes and the energy division has a gas-fired turbine with a nominal capacity of 30MW.

History

The Petrotel refinery was established in 1904 as the Romanian-American Refinery ( ro, Rafinăria Româno-Americană) with an annual processing capacity of 80,000 tonnes. It became a strategic target in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and was bombarded by the allied powers in a small raid in June 1942, then in a much larger series of missions,

Operation Tidal Wave Operation Tidal Wave was an air attack by bombers of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) based in Libya on nine oil refineries around Ploiești, Romania on 1 August 1943, during World War II. It was a strategic bombing mission and part of ...

in August 1943, in an effort to destroy

the Axis The Zappos Theater, originally known as Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, is a mid-sized auditorium located at Planet Hollywood Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip. The venue hosts a variety of events, including charity benefits, concerts an ...

' oil fields and refineries. The refinery area quickly became the third most heavily defended target in Europe, after Berlin and Vienna. In 1979 the refinery was renamed ''Teleajen'' after the nearby

Teleajen River The Teleajen is a left tributary of the river Prahova in southern Romania. Its source is at elevation in the Ciucaș Mountains, north of Roșu Peak and the locality of Cheia. Upstream from its confluence with the Gropșoarele in Cheia, it is al ...

and held this name until 1998 when it was privatised and sold to the

n company

Lukoil The PJSC Lukoil Oil Company ( stylized as LUKOIL or ЛУКОЙЛ in Cyrillic script) is a Russian multinational energy corporation headquartered in Moscow, specializing in the business of extraction, production, transport, and sale of petrol ...

for US$ 53 million; with this sale, the refinery's name became Petrotel-Lukoil.

References

External links

Official site
{dead link, date=March 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Oil and gas companies of Romania Oil refineries in Romania Lukoil Companies based in Ploiești