A modern laboratory for testing fuel quality at Petrobrazi

OMV Petrom, the largest oil and gas producer in Southeastern Europe, announces the inauguration of a modern laboratory test center for fuel quality control at Petrobrazi refinery. The modernization of the laboratory located near the entrance of the Petrobrazi refinery required investments of approximately EUR 5 mn, including relocation the existing laboratory equipment from the old facility. The new test center has three laboratories for petroleum products testing and one laboratory for water- environment tests. At the test center at Petrobrazi refinery, the most relevant quality characteristics of fuels are tested on a continuous basis. “Gasoline and diesel are, in fact, mixtures of hundreds of hydrocarbons and tens of other products, to precise recipes. Fortunately, Romania does not have a problem with fuel quality and every client at OMV or Petrom filling stations knows he or she can rely on our fuels. But, in order to reach this high level of quality, there is a lot of work behind the scenes, billions of euro in investment, and laboratories, like this one, which perform thousands of tests to ensure the quality of the products that come out of the refinery.”, said Neil Anthony Morgan, OMV Petrom Executive Board member responsible for Downstream Oil. The most important quality characteristics of fuels are tested in the laboratories; for example, the gasoline octane number and the diesel cetane number. These characteristics are relevant for the power that fuels transmit to the engine. For testing fuel power, Octane Number Research tests are performed to measure gasoline detonation properties compared to a standard reference substance. Also, motor tests for octane number are performed in the center, which test gasoline in conditions closer to real-life. Other quality tests for fuels performed by the laboratory aim to check the water content, the sulphur and other metals or gums content, or the filterability temperature of diesel – which show the lowest temperatures at which diesel engines can work without any problems. Around 150,000 laboratory tests are performed annually in the test center in Petrobrazi.

About Petrobrazi

After privatization (2005-2016), investments in the Petrobrazi Refinery have totaled EUR 1.2 billion, of which around EUR 600 million was invested for the modernization program which took place between 2010 and 2014. With a refining capacity of 4.5 million tonnes per year, Petrobrazi can process the entire crude production of OMV Petrom in Romania. The refinery currently has an 11.5 Nelson Index1, the largest in the region, capable of processing a large variety of crude.

About OMV Petrom

OMV Petrom is the largest integrated oil and gas group in Southeastern Europe, with annual oil and gas production of approximately 64 mn boe in 2016. The Group has a refining capacity of 4.5 mn tonnes / year and operates an 860 MW high-efficiency power plant and a 45 MW wind park. The group is present on the oil products retail markets in Romania and neighboring countries through 783 filling stations, end 2016, under two brands – Petrom and OMV. OMV, one of Austria’s largest listed industrial companies, holds a 51.01% stake in OMV Petrom. The Romanian state, via the Ministry of Energy, holds 20.64% of OMV Petrom shares, Fondul Proprietatea holds 12.57%, and 15.79% of shares are traded as free float on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange.