Fuel and energy ministry back to a project to build oil refinery in Brody, Lviv oblast

April16200812:31

The fuel and energy ministry supports plans by BrodAhroOil JV to build a new oil refinery in Brody, Lviv oblast, the ministry spokesperson announced Apr. 16. The new refinery will produce Euro 4 and Euro 5 grades of gasoline, for the first time in Ukraine. The ministry is currently involved in preparing a construction project. - Meanwhile, the ministry will not extend the existing privileges to oil refineries that produce gas according to old standards. The ministry will rather support the construction of modern refineries, it says.

Talks about building a new refinery in Brody have been under way for 3 years now. Highly-placed Lviv oblast officials say that the project has been cold-shouldered by cabinet officials.

Comment by ZIK

In October 2005, the Lviv oblast administration and Ukrainian-American JV BrodAhroOil signed a memorandum on cooperation in building an oil/agrarian-industrial integration complex in Brody. The total cost of construction of a refinery and several agricultural facilities amounts to $3 billion. The construction of the Stage 1 (oil refinery and thermal power plant) is $ 1.5 billion. The refinery is expected to produce gasolines, diesel fuel, aviation kerosene, bitumen materials, chemicals, plastics and sulfuric acid.

In line with the project, the new refinery will process up to 8 million tons of oil annually. Stage 2 includes the construction of food-processing infrastructure: a meat cannery, a vegetable cannery, a sugar plant, a brewery, a milk plant, a confectionary plant, a macaroni plant, a biodiesel plant, and a grain-processing plant.

BrodAhroOil JVC founders include 2 US-based companies, ComOxy L.L.C. (Texas) and Bortex Enterprises (California), and Ukrainian companies Ahrolit (Lviv) and STEK (Kyiv).