MOSCOW, March 5, 2004 (RIA Novosti) - LUKoil, Russia's major oil producer dealing mainly in western Siberia, re-opened a reconstructed oil refinery in Odessa, on the Black Sea, on March 5.
The reconstruction was completed on schedule. It cost the company some 33 million grivnias to repair and modernise the facility.
The Odessa refinery was opened in 1937, while LUKoil purchased it in April 1999 at a tender.
By that time, 70% of the refinery's capacity was idle, while its crude oil refinery depth was the worst in Ukraine. In 2001, the amount of refined oil nearly doubled and the plant's share in Ukraine's oil refining industry went up to 14.7%, or twofold. In 2002, the plant refined 2.5 million tons of crude, its refinery depth being 51.1%, in 2003, the plant's output reached 2.8 million tons.
