Refinery products

Since 2009 we have expanded our offering line to include other refinery products, including: Bitumen, EN590, Mazut and N46. Each of these products consists of a blend of several different streams produced by various refinery processes to meet final specifications. These products are then stored in a tank farm on the refinery premises before being delivered to retail markets. Delivery may be done via sea/ocean shipment, or loaded onto tanker trucks for direct delivery to European destinations.

We offer a comprehensive range of Bitumen and Bitumen emulsions suitable to meet the current demands of a broad customer base. Our products range from standard penetration grade bitumen to a full range of oxidised bitumen and polymer modified bitumen.

Our in-house knowledge and expertise is shared throughout our affiliated companies such as Consiliari Bitum,which captures the full range of the Bitumen related products and offers.

What is Bitumen?

The Bitumen is well known for many generations. In the past, it was used to waterproof boats, and even as a coating for buildings; it is possible, for example, that a number of cities such as Carthage was easily burnt down due to extensive use of bitumen in construction.

Nowadays vast majority of refined bitumen is used in construction: primarily as a constituent of products used in paving and roofing applications.

Bitumen is produced by removing the lighter fractions (such as liquid petroleum gas, petrol and diesel) from heavy crude oil during the refining process. As such, it is correctly known as refined bitumen. In North America, bitumen is commonly known as ?asphalt?. While elsewhere, ?asphalt? is the term used for a mixture of small stones, sand, filler and bitumen, which is used as a road paving material. The asphalt mixture contains approximately 5% bitumen

It is estimated that the current world use of bitumen is approximately 132 million MT per year. Approximately 85% of all the bitumen produced is used as the binder in asphalt for roads. It is also used in other paved areas such as airport runways, car parks and footways. Typically, the production of asphalt involves mixing sand, gravel and crushed rock with bitumen, which acts as the binding agent. Other materials, such as polymers, may be added to the bitumen to alter its properties according to the application for which the asphalt is ultimately intended.

A further 10% of global bitumen production is used in roofing applications, where its waterproofing qualities are invaluable. The remaining 5% of bitumen is used mainly for sealing and insulating purposes in a variety of building materials, such as pipe coatings, carpet tile backing and paint.

Gasoil or D2?

The principal differentiator between GASOIL and D2 is sulphur content. Just 10 years ago, the US EPA introduced a limit of 4% sulphur in GASOIL, which Europe and the rest of the world followed later. As in most other cases, more efficient ways to remove the sulphur were soon discovered.

So “Low sulphur Gasoil” is no longer 4 percent – but below 0.2 percent. Then we have a new, “Ultra Low Sulphur” which is 0.02% at the most.

The International Standardization Organization – ISO has a standard for D2 that most oil companies use as their reference. In Europe, similar national variants exist, e.g. in Germany set by DIN, and in Russia by GOST.

The GOST variant for D2/Gasoil is GOST 305-82 which now specifies a sulphur content of 0.02 MAX according to the ISO standard.

Our suppliers from Russian regions and the Middle East refer to these standards.