Nynas announced last Thursday that it has now taken over production and responsibility for the base oil plant and associated production units at the Harburg refinery in Hamburg, Germany.
According to Nynas, the takeover of the Harburg base oil plant is the first step towards establishing a new core site with an annual production of specialty oils up to 350,000 tons. This will represent a forty percent increase in the company's supply capability of naphthenic specialty oils.
"Over the next 24 months Harburg will be converted into a world class, stand-alone specialty oils refinery. The high safety performance and professionalism demonstrated by the Harburg organisation and the welcoming attitude from the region have been important for taking this step," says Staffan Lennström CEO of Nynas.
With the takeover of the Harburg base oil plant, approximately 90 Shell employees are now employed by Nynas and this number will grow to 220 after two years.
Nynas signed this deal with Shell in December 2011 to takeover the Harburg base oil plant.
"The addition of Harburg to Nynas supply system is an important step forward in Nynas' growth strategy," says Lennström.. "We will increase volumes of all products in our current range of naphthenic specialty oils. With the new capacity we can reinforce our delivery performance and quickly meet the growing demand from our customers around the world."
In preparation for the next step, a hydrogen production plant will be built and operated by a third party supplier and Nynas will convert existing plants for further specialty oils production in the northern part of the Harburg refinery.
After the conversion project, Nynas will take over all the operations of the new stand-alone specialty oils refinery.
With this agreement, Nynas will not take over any customers, sales or marketing assets from Shell.
Nynas also operates a naphthenic base oil plant at Nynashamn, Sweden with an annual capacity of 400,000 tons (7,800 barrels per day). The company also has long-term agreements to sell naphthenic base oils produced by Valero in Three Rivers, Texas and by PdVSA in Emmastad in the Dutch Antilles with capacity at those facilities of 2,400 b/d and 3,700 b/d, respectively. Nynas is the worlds second-largest supplier of naphthenic base oils, only behind Ergon with 22,000 b/d of pale oil capacity in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
In recent years, Nynas has opened sales offices and distribution terminals in fast-growing markets such as China, South Korea, India, Russia and several countries in Latin America.
Today, Nynas is a primary supplier in areas such as transformer oils for the world's electrical networks. The company is also taking advantage of the rapidly increasing demand for environmentally sound oils for tyre production.
