Croatian daily Jutarnji List said INA was weighing how to send crude normally processed at its refinery in Sisak, which was recently temporarily shut down, to Bosnia, Serbia and Hungary, citing a “secret internal document”.
In a statement sent to MTI, INA said the graph on which the paper based its article, was part of a road analysis of its refining business that it reported on earlier.
INA announced it had shut down production at the Sisak refinery in January.
“A drastic fall in oil prices weakens the profitability of our exploration and production segment and we have to make an additional effort to improve the profitability of the refinery business. In that context we decided to temporarily suspend production in Sisak on January 14,” it said at the time.
A spokesman for MOL said last autumn that extending the lifespan of the Sisak refinery would not be worth it.
MOL, which exercises management rights in INA, by agreement with the Croatian government, the other big stakeholder, has noted that INA’s refinery capacities exceed Croatian market demand and face challenges in terms of competitiveness. Speculation that one of the refineries will be shut down has caused concern on the Croatian side.
INA dismisses speculation it will ship crude abroad for refining
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