OREANDA-NEWS. As part of the renovation and modernization programme at Gazprom Neft's Moscow Refinery covering the period to 2020, the plant is upgrading its process furnaces and switching completely to environmentally friendly gaseous fuel. By increasing the efficiency of the equipment, emissions of sulphur oxides will be reduced by over 95%.

Installing new furnaces and renovating the existing ones, will enable the plant to increase furnace efficiency to 90%, whilst optimizing the heat exchange system will enable an 8-16% reduction in fuel consumption in the modernized units.

The planned switch from liquid to gaseous fuel at the Moscow Refinery will also lead to a gradual reduction in its environmental impact. Since modernization of the plant began in 2010, the annual volume of emissions of sulphur oxides has been reduced by 20% overall by changing the blend composition of the fuel used and reducing the sulphur content from 3.0% to 1.6%.