OREANDA-NEWS. January 16, 2012. The Rompetrol Group through Midia Marine Terminal will execute during January – June 2012 dragging activities of the Midia Port berths in order to facilitate the transit of oil tankers. The cost of the works is estimated at 2.8 million USD.

“The project is a part of The Rompetrol Group strategy of increasing the processing capacity of Petromidia refinery up to 5 million tons of raw material, that it is going to be finalized in 2012 and will provide the development of transit capacity of finished products through Midia Port”, declares Ioan Taus, the Midia Marine Terminal General Manager.

Dragging works will be performed in a partnership with the National Company of Sea Port Management Constanta (CN APMC) and will allow mooring of sea vessels with a deadweight of over 10,000 tons and tank barges of maximum 2,000 tdw in the company operated berths.

The operations will be performed in two stages and involve depth corrections of navigable fairways and jetties from the beths 9A and 9B from Midia Port in order to facilitate mooring of vessels with maximal draft of 8.5 meters; the second stage consists in widening of the navigable fairway for purposes of increasing safety during navigation of the ships with 200 meters length and 30,000 dwt, ships that enter the Midia Port.

The dragging works will be conducted under the approval and supervision of CN APMC with special equipment, one of them being the drag Dunarea Maritima (Marine Danube), property of AFDJ Galati. Dragged materials will be stored in the areas indicated by CN APMC and Apele Romane (National Administration of Romanian Waters).

During last three years 1168 ships have passed through 7 berths operated by Rompetrol Rafinare, through which it is provided a part of the necessary raw materials. In 2011 the volume of transited products reached 1,250,000 tons.

The Rompetrol Group has assigned in the 2007-2008 period over 175 million USD for constructing an offshore marine terminal in the Black Sea and a 350% extension of the finished products transit capacity through Midia Port Berth 9 (from 90,000 tons/month up to 310,000 tons/month).

The oil terminal is situated 8.6 km into the Black Sea, has an annual transiting capacity of 24 million tons of crude oil and could receive tankers up to 160,000 tdw. Crude oil loading/unloading operations are performed through an underwater and terrain pipeline between a floating mooring system and the Petromidia refinery tank farm.

From the moment of the Petromidia privatization in 2001 The Rompetrol Group has assigned till the present moment approximately 1.1 billion USD for realizing technological and environmental investments. The projects have been carried out in conditions of maximal technological and environment protective efficiency according international norms in force – IPPC European Directive (Integrated Pollution Prevention Control).

Recently the National Shipping Company of Kazakhstan Kazmortransflot, a member company of KazMunayGas – Sole Shareholder of The Rompetrol Group, has expanded its shipping operations with crude oil and petroleum products both in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea through buying 2 oil tanks of Aframax (115,000 dwr) type.

As well, since 2008 KMG owns the operator of the oil terminal in the Georgian port of Batumi having an annual transiting capacity of 15 million tons, at the same time being a shareholder of the Caspian Pipeline Concortium (CPC) – the operator of crude oil pipeline between oilfields in Western Kazakhsatn and the Black Sea port Novorossiysk in Russia.

The pipeline has a length of 1510 kilometers and a transiting capacity of 28.2 million tons per year. After work on expanding the pipeline is completed, CPC’s capacity is expected to reach 67 million tons of crude per year, with 50 million tons capacity reserved for oil extracted in Kazakhstan.

CPC’s sovereign shareholders are Russia with 31 percent, Kazakhstan with 19 percent, and other parties.