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First petroleum refinery established in Romania after 1989
A family of Arad County (western Romania) established a refinery, West Petrol Rafinare, which represents the first petroleum refinery that has come into view in Romania after 1989, economica.net informs.
The refinery has been operating for a month, in Apateu Commune, Arad County, and is self-managed, with a capacity of 250 tonnes per day. Petrom has already become a customer of the business.
The couple, Stelian and Marinela Tulcan, who started the entire business, has a number of 40 employees and they have recently signed a contract with Oil Terminal Constanta, worth approximately 2 million euros for the supply of 5,700 tonnes of petroleum needed for refining.The resulted fuel is sold to fuel distributors and to other customers in the west of the country. Moreover, the refinery also produces a range of solvents, but also bitumen.
'We started the construction of the refinery five years ago, after we saw in Italy that a refinery which in Romania covered 50 hectares could be built on a 95 percent smaller area. At present there are mechanised and minimised installations that can do everything the ones of 30 years ago did. It cost me a few millions of euros, it is so easy that anyone disposing of a similar amount can enter this area,' economica.net quotes Stelian Tulcan as saying.
At present, in Romania there are six big refineries, namely Petromidia, Petrobrazi, LukOil Ploiesti, Rafo Onesti, Vega Ploiesti and Arpechim Pitesti.Romania's total refining capacity stands at about 12 million tonnes annually. The largest fuel retailers are Petrom, Rompetrol, LukOil, Mol and OMV.