SLOVNAFT INVESTS EUR 52 MILLION IN PLANNED MAINTENANCE OF PRODUCTION FACILITIES THIS YEAR

• Slovnaft has planned maintenance of half of its production facilities for this year, with a total value of EUR 52 million.
• The spring part of the planned mandatory shutdowns of production facilities will take place in March, the others will be in summer and autumn.
• The company has changed the system for preparing and carrying out overhauls to make them as short as possible and to minimise their impact on the surrounding area.
• Residents can find all the information about what is happening at the refinery in the mobile app Sused Slovnaft.

BRATISLAVA, March 1st 2022 - Slovnaft will start planned maintenance of part of its production facilities next weekend. This is the first part of the planned mandatory shutdowns this year, which are to affect almost half of the production facilities. The company is investing a total of EUR 52 million in mandatory maintenance, repairs and technology upgrades to improve the safety of their operation and the environmental impact of production. The overhauls of production facilities will take place in three time blocks - spring, summer and autumn. Domestic and foreign external contractors will be involved in the cleaning, inspection and repair of refinery and petrochemical facilities. Customer supplies will not be affected during the shutdowns.

"We started working on this planned maintenance two years ago. The process of managing planned outages is very complex. It involves more than 15 different Slovnaft departments and more than 300 internal staff," says Lukáš Noskovič, Project and Planned Outage Management Manager.

The spring part of the compulsory maintenance will start this weekend and will involve 1100 external specialists in addition to Slovnaft employees. During this phase, Slovnaft will shut down nine production units and the following six will be idle. The shutdown of most of them is scheduled for March 5th 2022, with all work to be completed and the manufacturing units restarted in early April.

The spring process shutdowns are preferably aimed at cleaning the equipment, which in turn reduces the energy intensity of the oil refining processes. This means lower consumption of both natural and refinery gas with a direct impact on reducing the environmental burden.

The safe shutdown and restart of production facilities are accompanied by activities that may be perceived as sensitive by nearby residents. These include the burning of materials on field burners, which causes radiation or increased noise. The opening of facilities for inspection and cleaning may be accompanied by the spread of odours. Its intensity also depends on weather conditions. The company has planned all work and activities to minimise their impact and effects on the population in the vicinity of the refinery. This is also facilitated by the Turnaround Excellence (TEX) programme, which the company has developed in collaboration with external consultants.

"TEX allows us to take all the necessary steps in advance to avoid risks in the implementation phase. Thanks to the programme, downtime has been reduced to the minimum necessary," adds Lukáš Noskovič.

Slovnaft publishes all information about planned works on its website and is also available in the mobile app Sused Slovnaft.

Slovnaft, as an important part of critical infrastructure, has long had strict anti-pandemic measures in place and during shutdowns they will also apply to all external contractors working in the production area. The summer part of the shutdowns is subsequently scheduled from the end of May to the end of July. Sixteen production units will undergo general overhauls, another three Slovnaft units will be put on technical hold and three production units will be upgraded. In the final autumn part, one production unit is scheduled to be overhauled and one follow-up unit will be in downtime.

Watch the video about the planned shutdowns: