Croatia's INA to Restart Production at Rijeka Refinery

Croatian oil and gas company INA [ZSE:INA-R-A] said on Thursday its Rijeka refinery will relaunch production in early September following a recent fire that affected its atmospheric distillation unit and led to the subsequent shutdown of operations.

INA said in a statement the damage caused by the fire incident that occurred on August 18 is estimated at 750,000 kuna ($130,000/98,000 euro).

The conducted investigation confirmed the fire was caused by leakage of atmospheric residue from one of the caps on the pump housing, after which spontaneous combustion of the atmospheric residue occurred, INA said, adding that the cap was loosened due to thread damage, which was most likely caused by corrosion.

The Rijeka refinery - one of two operated by INA, has a nominal crude distillation capacity of 4.5 million tonnes per year, data from the website of INA's Hungarian parent, MOL, showed. INA's second refinery is located in Sisak.

INA has exploration and production operations in Croatia, Africa and the Middle East and operates a filling station network on its home market and in neighboring countries.

Source: SeeNews