Bitumen production at Lithuania's 190,000 b/d Mazeikiai refinery soared to 414,300t in January-October last year from 244,600t in the same period of 2022, according to the government's official statistics portal.
Output in January-October was the highest since the data began to be published in 2013. The rise in bitumen production coincided with a 14pc year-on-year increase in crude runs at Mazeikiai to 7.52mn t. Bitumen output was also boosted by a lower high-sulphur fuel oil yields, market participants said.
Lithuania exported 324,000t of bitumen in January-October, compared with 197,400t a year earleir, according to the official data.
The Mazeikiai refinery, operated by a subsidiary of Poland's Orlen, has played an important role in helping road construction companies in the Nordic region weather the effects of Russian sanctions. The bulk of the Orlen Lietuva's bitumen export cargoes in January-October were loaded at the Baltic ports of Klaipeda and Liepaja to Sweden, Finland, the UK and Norway. Smaller batches of bitumen were sent by road to Estonia, Ukraine and Poland.
Lithuanian bitumen consumption was 124,200t in the first 10 months of 2023, up by 28,400t from the same period of 2022. Bitumen imports to the country fell by 11,400t to almost 30,000t over the same period, with most of it coming from Poland
