VILNIUS - Klaipedos Nafta (Klaipeda Oil), the state-run oil products terminal, cut operations considerably after a fire destroyed part of the Mazeikiu refinery last week. Mazeikiu provides 80 percent of exports handled by Klaipeda Oil.
"The company will continue operations. However, the type of products will change to heavy fuel oil, since volumes of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel might decline," Jurgis Ausra, CEO of Klaipeda Oil, told the Baltic News Service.
The company believes that it could avoid suspending operations if it continues to obtain some orders from Mazeikiu Nafta, its key customer.
The remaining stocks of Mazeikiu Nafta's products were offloaded onto a small tanker on Oct. 16, he said. Products produced at Mazeikiu Nafta comprise over 80 percent of total handling at the terminal.
Ausra refused to comment when asked whether Mazeikiu Nafta would continue exports via the terminal and what measures the company had taken to obtain new orders from other customers.
Giedrius Karsokas, Mazeikiu Nafta's communications director, told the Baltic News Service that the oil complex would export a small quantity of heavy fuel oil.
The terminal handled 4.3 million tons of petroleum products in the first nine months of 2006, almost unchanged from the amount handled in 2005.
However, handling revenues in the first nine month declined by 15 percent, to 56.1 million litas, due to lower handling tariffs levied on Mazeikiu Nafta's products since September, 2005.
