Energy company Petrol Ofisi announced recently that it is expanding its lubricant blending plant in Kocaeli, Turkey, increasing production capacity from 150,000 metric tons per year to 230,000 t/y.
The company, which is headquartered in Istanbul, said the enlarged facility will be capable of meeting half of Turkey’s domestic demand, although some of its output will be exported to other markets.
“Located in Kocaeli, our facility aims to be the heart of our industry and is definitely one of the largest in the world,” Petrol Ofisi Group Lubricants Director Sezgin Gürsu said in a news release.
The company did not disclose a schedule for the project nor its cost.
Turkey consumed 500,000 tons of finished lubes in 2022, according to Petrol Ofisi, ranking as one of the large markets in Europe. The country is also one of the hemisphere’s largest lube exporters. Petrol Ofisi claims to be the country’s largest lube producer.
The company currently exports to 33 countries on four continents, and officials said the expansion will enable an increase in export volumes.
The expansion will be achieved through revisions of existing package filling lines, installation of additional filling lines and construction of additional blending and storage tanks.
The Kocaeli site is an integrated facility also used for fuel storage, and the company is also expanding that part of the operation. As part of the project, the company installed solar energy panels, which now supply a third of the electricity used by the site. The company plans to increase that portion to two-thirds.