Russian oil major Tatneft’s Taneco refinery overhauled several units as part of a project aimed at enabling it to make 6 centistoke API Group III base oil, but it may not start to do so for more than a year.
Tatneft described the work done at its refinery in Nizhnekamsk in a recent press release. “During the overhaul of the hydrocracking and hydrogen production units, we performed inserts in the pipelines needed for the second phase of Taneco’s [refining] complex completion.” Similar work to enable production of 6 cSt Group III was done in the base oil plant.
Sources with the refinery told Lube Report that this product could possibly be added to Taneko’s product portfolio “after 2021.”
“The market has awaited addition of a 6 cSt grade to Tatneft’s portfolio, and that grade is in high demand from both domestic engine lubricant marketers and the export markets,” Denis Varaksin, director for base oil and waxes at the Berlin-based base oil trader DYM Resources, told Lube Report. “In the current deficit, the refinery will sell this grade like hot cakes.”
The 6 cSt Group III is mostly used in motor oils for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles but can also be used in industrial applications.
Taneco’s base oil plant has capacity to make 90,000 metric tons per year of Group II and 100,000 t/y of Group III base oils. At the moment, the Tatarstan refiner markets a 2.5 cSt Group II and a 4 cSt Group III oil.
Varaksin predicts that Taneko could start streaming the 6 cSt product in one to two years’ time from now, by the end of 2021 at the earliest.