Oil Refinery JSC was founded in 1892 by Hungarian chemical company „Danica“. The annual production capacity of then-refinery was 25.000 tonnes.
The municipality of Brod was chosen for construction of the Oil refinery due to its location. Access to Sava river which is navigable from the town of Sisak to its confluence in the Danube leading to the Black Sea, as well as access to railway which connected it with the European countries and the narrow-gauge railway which connected it with the rest of Bosnia made location suitable for refinery. Also, there was a big transshipment railway station in Brod. In 1927, having completed negotiations with Standard Oil Company, the state sold the Oil refinery. The new owner built new refinery with the capacity of 300 tonnes per day. At the outbreak of WWII, Standard Oil Company left Yugoslavia.
After World War II, the Oil Refinery Brod was reconstructed and nationalized. New plants were built with bigger capacity of processing and with the possibility to increase secondary processing. Based on these capacities, reconstruction of processing plant – for processing of thermal cracking - increased the capacity to 2.500 tonnes. Ever increasing motorization, increase in need for fuels and development of technology used in oil processing in the world influenced the Refinery Brod to build production line “Snam Progetti” with the capacity of 2 million tonnes per year.
This line was finished in 1968 and is usually referred to as the “old” processing line. In 1990 a new processing line was built with the processing capacity of 3 mil tonnes per year and it comprised around 10 production processes. The new line was expected to meet the needs of the market in terms of petroleum products and petrochemical feedstock. The ambitious plans for development were halted in 1991 with the outbreak of the civil war on the territory of ex SFRJ. After the war, the works began in order to undo war damage and reconstruct the refinery.
The processing plants of the Refinery had been non-operational since 2005 until privatization. Russian state-owned company Zarubezhneft JSC initiated total modernisation of Oil refinery Brod in 2007. A new processing line, fully modernized, was put into operation already in 2008, with annual processing capacity of 1.2 million tonnes. The new owner invested over € 260 million in modernization of the plant. The following object have been fully reconstructed or newly built:
- Testing and preparation for operation of „Old line“ whose capacity is 1.2 million tons/year.
- Modernization and certification of laboratory,
- Reconstruction of „New line“,
- Reconstruction and modernization of transport infrastructure, and
- Over 40 investment projects, which are a part of total plant modernization at the Refinery.
Today, Oil refinery Brod produces motor fuels which correspond EURO 5 quality standard.
Future
Further development of Oil refinery Brod is defined by 3 main segments:
- Implementation of new investment projects between 2018 and 2022,
- Reduction of operational expenses and increase in operational effectiveness of the refinery
- Implementation of energy efficiency programme.
Priority prospective investment projects to be are: gasification of production plants; changing furnace burners; modernization of hydrogen network installation; modernization and installation of automatic process management at sections 04, 05, 06; modernization of outturn of raw materials at section 05 and installation of ASIUR.
Energy efficiency projects, along with gasification, also include: application of energy audit measures; installation of measuring equipment; change of lighting with energy-saving lightbulbs; transfer from steam to electric heating.