Mazeikiu Nafta said on Tuesday that its $50 million isomerisation unit, which produces high grade gasoline, had gone off line after an accident. According to the spokesman of the company the unit was shut down due to a leak of hydrocarbon gas but was already back on stream yesterday.
Our view: Two days outage of the isomerisation unit will have a minor financial impact only.
Although we expect PKN to initiate talks with the Lithuanian government and Yukos on the final price of Mazeikiu Nafta, the main argument would be the change in crude supply situation and the explosion of the vacuum distillation column and not the yesterday’s minor failure with the isomerisation unit, what we consider as a usual operational failure of a refinery. Therefore, we see the news as neutral.