Unplanned shutdown at Czech Litvinov refinery

The 108,000 b/d Litvinov refinery in the Czech Republic was shut down on 15 August following an energy supply issue, according to market sources.

The refinery will be down for at least five days, the sources said. The refinery's operator, Orlen Unipetrol, has yet to respond to a request for comment.

Litvinov receives Russian Urals crude through the Druzhba pipeline system and produces multiple refined products and petrochemicals including transport fuels and bitumen.

The shutdown will significantly disrupt transport fuel supply in the Czech Republic, requiring increased imports from neighbouring countries.

On 29 July, Orlen Unipetrol declared force majeure on petrochemical products polyethylene and polypropylene because of a cooling system malfunction at Litvinov. The company said an outage at a cooling water system supplying its ethylene cracker had resulted in an emergency shutdown of the unit.

The company subsequently lifted the force majeure on 7 August as the cracker outage was short-lived. It is unclear if today's refinery shutdown will have any impact on the company's petrochemical operations.

By Fenella Rhodes