Mozyr Oil Refinery doing well despite Russian taxation changes

In Q1 2015 Mozyr Oil Refinery operated in the black despite changes in the Russian oil industry taxation, BelTA learned from Vladimir Sizov, Deputy Director General of OAO Mozyr Oil Refinery, on 14 April.

“In the first quarter of the year Mozyr Oil Refinery's performance demonstrated positive dynamics. In other words, we don't operate in the red. The development of the situation will depend, among other things, on whether Russian companies get back to processing or not,” said the executive.

While the profitability of oil processing is falling due to the so-called tax maneuver, the management of the Mozyr-based company intends to secure positive results at the end of the year.

According to Vladimir Sizov, the company intends to process 12.230 million tonnes of oil in 2015 or roughly as much as it did in 2014. In Q1 2015 Mozyr Oil Refinery processed about 3 million tonnes of oil. The company is now operating at its full capacity.

During a specialized conference in Minsk on 15 April the Deputy Director General said that before the tax adjustment the price for oil was $340 per tonne (excluding customs duties). With the tax adjustments in place, the oil price stands at $220. “While in December 2014 the correlation between the value of the export basket of oil products and the price for oil was roughly 1.7, in January 2015 and February 2015 the figure dropped to 1.3 and 1.2,” said the executive.

Mozyr Oil Refinery was commissioned in 1975 and reincorporated into a public joint-stock company (OAO) in 1994. The share of the State Property Committee of Belarus in the company's charter fund stands at 42.76%, that of OAO NGK Slavneft 42.58%, OOO Mozyr Oil Refinery Plus 12.25%, natural persons 2.41%. The company specializes in oil refining, manufacturing and selling oil products. In 2014 the company processed over 12 million tonnes of oil. For the first time the oil conversion ratio reached 72%, with the output of light oil products at 60%.