After completing USD 350 million acquisition of Stanlow oil refinery, Essar Energy Plc on Monday said it has drawn out a 100-day plan to optimise operations and increasing efficiency at the UK’s second largest refinery.
Essar Energy today took over the management of Stanlow. “Current management at Stanlow is very competent set of people. They are very good in refining business. We are continuing with them,” Essar Energy CEO Naresh Nayyar said after his company took operations of the refinery situated near Ellesmere Port in the North-West of England.
While retaining the operational team, Essar intends to handle strategic activities like oil trading, long range planning and treasury function, which were earlier handled by a central team of Royal Dutch Shell, from whom it has bought the Stanlow refinery.
“We have drawn what is typically called the first 100-day plan. Our focus is to optimise crude mix, improve product slate, increase refinery thruput and raise operational efficiency of the unit,” he said.
The refinery, at present, operates at 75 per cent of its rated capacity of 296,000 barrels per day and produces gas oil, gasoline and jet fuel that are mostly sold into the UK.
“Stanlow services 15 per cent of the UK fuel market,” he said. “Our endeavour will be to increase volumes in domestic (UK) market. Currently, some products are being exported to Europe.”
It supplies about one-sixth of the UK’s petrol and is also a key manufacturer of diesel and aircraft fuel.
Stanlow is “a high quality refinery and is an excellent fit with our refining strategy,” he said.
“It takes us substantially closer to our objective of a global refining capacity of one million barrels daily. We look forward to making some operational improvements which will optimise production at Stanlow,” he added.
The acquisition of the Stanlow refinery gives Essar Energy direct access to the UK market. It is also aligned with Essar Energy’s strategy to provide options for the export of high value fuel products from its refinery at Vadinar, in Gujarat.
Vadinar has a capacity of 300,000 bpd, which will be raised to 375,000 bpd as part of Phase-I expansion plans, due to be completed by the end of this year, and to 405,000 bpd by September, 2012.
Essar Energy also owns a 50 per cent stake in the Kenya Petroleum Refineries facility in Mombasa which has a nameplate capacity of 80,000 bpd.
