Bulgarian refinery puts off upgrade
SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgarian refinery Neftochim Burgas, controlled by Russia’s LUKOIL, said yesterday it is delaying a major overhaul of one of its crude distillation units until next year. The 140,000-barrel-per-day refinery had planned to launch the six-month upgrade in November. It has now decided to carry out the work some time in 2008, as the upgrade was not considered urgent, a spokeswoman for the refinery said. «The overhaul is being postponed for next year. The engineers deemed the unit is in good condition and the upgrade is not urgent,» she told Reuters. Some traders said they had previously expected the Balkan country’s only refinery to bring forward its maintenance from November to September. Neftochim Burgas denied such a move.