At the factory of the oil refining company “Orlen Lietuva”, managed by the Polish oil concern “PKN Orlen”, in Mažeiki, where extensive technical maintenance and repair works were carried out since the beginning of May, production has resumed at full capacity.
“54 days after the shutdown of the production of the only oil refinery in the Baltic States, the maintenance work at the plant has been completed and crude oil is being processed at full capacity,” the company informed.
Audrjus Daugnora, deputy manager of “Orlen Lietuva” for production issues, stated that as a result of proper planning, the maintenance was completed within the planned period and budget.
A quarter of the maintenance budget was spent on upgrading the catalytic cracker, the most important of the production lines.
Maintenance work was carried out by subcontractors from Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Germany and other European Union countries.
More than 2,000 people and 40 road cranes performed the works at the same time, during which 15 kilometers of pipelines were replaced and more than 300 tests were performed on various equipment.
At the company’s Bütinge terminal, a team of 20 specially trained divers from the Republic of South Africa performed a complex buoy replacement.
Maintenance works at “Orlen Lietuva” continued since the beginning of May, and in connection with them, production was completely stopped. Usually such extensive maintenance works are carried out at the Mažeikai factory once every four or five years, and this year the costs of maintenance and repair works reach 80 million euros.
The previous major maintenance works at the factory in Mazeiki were in 2018. They were carried out in several rounds and the production plant was not completely stopped.
In 2022-2024, “Orlen Lietuva” plans to make the biggest investments since 2006, when it took over the factory in Mažeiki. At the end of October, the company signed a EUR 641 million contract with the British oil service company “Petrofac” for the modernization of the deep oil processing equipment at the Mažeikai plant.
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