The story
The refinery became operational in 1964 and joined the Lukoil Group in 1999. With some improvements undertaken over the year that refinery has a capacity to process 7 million tonnes a year.
Crude oil arrives by sea to the nearby port terminal of Burgas Rosenetz before being piped to the refinery. In 2011 Lukoil was given a 35 year concession to run the Rosnetz oil terminal.
In November 2021, Competition commission of Bulgaria accused Bulgarian branch of “Lukoil” of abuse of market dominance, due to, despite company`s biggest warehouse and logistics infrastructure on local oil market, Lukoil`s withdrawal to stock oil from other companies at Lukoil taxable warehouses, switched to main oil terminals in Bulgaria as well as to provide access to pipes for transportation of imported oil. In return, “LUKOIL Neftohim Burgas” has brought into focus, that any of the rules on Bulgarian oil market weren`t violated by the company. In 2022, it announced that it could only work with Russian oil grade "Ural". After he managed to avoid the embargo on Russian oil, he produces his fuel at several times lower cost, which he sells now at market prices. The refinery is also under investigation for tax evasion and financial manipulation.
In 2022 Bulgaria managed to obtain an exemption to allow Russian crude oil to be imported for the refinery until December 2024. Certain conditions were made for the concession, including that no crude oil would be shipped out to the EU and no refined oil world be sent outside Bulgaria, except to Ukraine, or for storage. Exports of processed oil has however been made from the refinery, the Seaexpress shipped 40,000 tons to Rotterdam in August 2023, other shipments have used ship-to-ship transfers to hide the source from the ultimate buyer.
In April 2023 Lukoil Bulgaria and Lukoil Neftohim Burgas were fined 195 million Lev (€100m) for abuse of a dominant position on the oil market contrary to national and European competition law.
On 15 August 2023 Bulgaria took operational control of the Burgas Rosenetz oil terminal from Lukoil by terminating the concession contract.
In October 2023 Bulgaria imposed a punitive tax rate on the owner of the refinery of 60% to encourage the Russian owner to sell the refinery. The tax rate will drop to 15% for a new owner.
On 5 December 2023, Bulgaria announced that exports of Russian processed oil will cease by 1 January 2024. The refinery will need an investment of €500m to reconfigure to process lighter grade crude oil.
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Bulgaria has announced that imports of Russian crude will cease on 1 March 2024, earlier than the EU concession date.
In December 2023, a number of companies had expressed an interest in buying the refinery, including Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR and American investors.
In January 2024, the refinery is not scheduled to receive any Russian oil, deliveries will be from Kazakhstan, Iraq, and Tunisia.
From Wikipedia’s article on Lukoil Neftohim Burgas, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3