PJSC Ukrtatnafta (Kremenchuk oil refinery, Poltava region) plans to increase crude oil refining by 35-50%, from 2.2 million tonnes in 2016 to 3-3.3 million tonnes in 2017, deputy chairman for production and capital construction Serhiy Kosheliuk has told journalists.

According to him, this year it is planned to process about 1.3 million tonnes of Azeri Light oil and up to 2 million tonnes of Ukrainian oil.

"Plus we also buy additional vacuum gas oil, which improves processing economy and increases the cost of the basket of petroleum products," the expert said.

Kosheliuk noted that with the designed capacity for processing being 18.6 million tonnes of raw materials per year, today its nominal capacity is about 7.3 million tonnes per year. In connection with the establishment of pipeline oil supplies and improvement of the quality of fuel, the plant intends to gradually increase production volumes and its market share.

"In fact, our annual processing volume should be about 4-5 million tonnes per year. Given the decline in the market capacity, this is the best figure we see for our plant," he said.