Riga — Crude oil and petroleum product transshipment company ”Ventspils nafta terminals Ltd.” (VNT), a subsidiary of joint-stock company ”Ventspils nafta” (VN), has planned to invest more than EUR 1 million with the perspective to offer its customers a new service – blending of motor gasoline with liquid butane or butanization, by obtaining a content of gasoline demanded on several world markets, LETA was informed by the company’s public relations director Gundega Varpa.

According to Varpa, if this plan is implemented, VNT will be the only company in the Baltic states able to provide such service, and it could improve competition not only of the terminal itself or the Ventspils Port, but also competition within the entire Latvian transit corridor, and increase the flow of transit cargo via Latvia.

In order to provide the new planned type of service, the terminal requires the construction of special blending equipment, and in case of receipt of all necessary authorizations, the maximal volume of the butane to be added to gasoline could reach 60,000 tons per year.

New equipment and its used technologies fully comply with latest European standards and norms both from safety and ecological point of view, Varpa explained.

According to the long-term development strategy of the company, VNT will continue to strengthen its positions as the most modern complex of crude oil and petroleum product transshipment in the Baltic region, by planning its operation under the same principles as other companies of the international concern ”Vitol Group”, VNT’s co-owner, around the world.

The most important infrastructure projects by VNT in the coming years also include construction of a pipeline corridor from the company’s territory to the jetties located many kilometer away from the port, where loading into tankers is carried out – planned investments in this project could be about LVL 3.7 million.

As reported, 51 percent of VNT capital belongs to VN, and 49 percent to ”Euromin Holdings Limited”, which is part of the ”Vitol” Group. The terminal provides transit services, accepting oil and diesel fuel via pipeline, as well as diesel fuel, petrol and other petroleum products by rail and by sea. The terminal also provides for the storage and transshipment of those products.

-leta