en.Wedoany.com Reported - During his inspection of the Atyrau region, Askhat Khasenov, Chairman of the Board of Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company KazMunayGas, received a report from the Atyrau Refinery on the progress of planned preventive maintenance and its production and operational results for the first half of the year. Refinery General Director Kuanych Bishimov reported that during the overhaul, technical inspections, assessments, and evaluations were completed on 20 reactors, 213 vessels, 32 columns, and 231 heat exchangers in accordance with industrial safety requirements. Some pipelines were updated, and over 335 tons of catalysts were replaced across multiple process units. To increase the yield of light oil products such as motor gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel, the internal components of the vacuum column in the ELTK AVT-3 unit were also upgraded. Approximately 1,700 specialists and over 50 pieces of specialized equipment participated in this overhaul. Since July 8, crude oil has been received for the first time after the planned preventive maintenance, and process units are being gradually started up according to the schedule approved by the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with progress 1.5 days ahead of plan.
In the first half of the year, the refinery processed over 2.8 million tons of crude oil, exceeding the plan by 20,000 tons; commercial product output reached 2.6 million tons, exceeding the plan by approximately 22,000 tons. Production targets for major products were all exceeded: motor gasoline output exceeded 1 million tons (plan: 983,500 tons), diesel output exceeded 1 million tons (120,000 tons above plan), aviation fuel output was 120,300 tons (14,000 tons above plan), and liquefied petroleum gas output was 115,000 tons (9,000 tons above plan). During the reporting period, the refining depth reached a record 91%, and light oil products accounted for 81% of total output.
The meeting also discussed projects to improve production efficiency and environmental protection levels. The refinery continues to install floating roofs on oil and petroleum product storage tanks, which can reduce hydrocarbon emissions by up to 90% per tank. Since the beginning of the year, floating roofs have been installed on six storage tanks, with plans to install them on three more tanks by the end of the year. Concurrently, the external energy infrastructure renovation project is progressing, aimed at establishing additional backup power sources and advancing the strategic deployment of transitioning to a three-year maintenance cycle.
During the meeting, Khasenov emphasized that starting up process units after planned preventive maintenance must strictly adhere to industrial safety requirements. He instructed the management of the Atyrau Refinery to continue improving production efficiency, ensure stable, safe, and continuous operation of the plant, and actively introduce digital solutions in production.
