OREANDA-NEWS. December 1, 2008. The first stage of the refinery rebuilt by Zarubezhneft in Bosnia and Herzegovina was opened in the city of Bosansky-Brod.

BOSANSKI-BROD /Bosnia and Herzegovina/ November 27. /ITAR-TASS Correspondent Andrey Naryshkin/.

The fist stage of the largest refinery in Bosnia and Herzegovina destroyed in the years of the military conflict and rebuilt by Zarubezhneft with Vnesheconombank’s funds opened today in the city of Bosanski Brod. A symbolic ribbon was cut by President of the Serb Republic Raiko Kuzmanovich and Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik as well as Vnesheconombank Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev and Zarubezhneft State Company General Director Nikolai Brunich.

According to the Prime Minister of the Serb Republic this day is a historic for him. “I am happy I was part of the team working on this project. It will start a new period of active cooperation between economic entities of the Serb Republic and Russia. It is the first but not the only project”, said the Premier who did a lot to get control of the refinery transferred to the ownership of Zarubezhneft and its subsidiary Neftegazinkor. “Two years ago when I happened to be at this refinery for the first time everything was quite different here - recollects Vladimir Dmitriev. “We saw production installations with shell holes, damaged equipment. Nobody was sure that it would be possible to launch the refinery into production in the short term. But this happened.

Vnesheconombank Chairman V. Dmitriev handed over Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s and Chief of Staff to the President Administration Sergei Naryshkin’s congratulations to Serb leaders and the refinery’s workers. Vladimir Dmitriev said that in accordance with Government’s resolution Vnesheconombank opened a credit line of 350 million euros for Zarubezhneft’s Bosnian project. “This was not only economic but also a political decision indicating that Russia’s leadership made a firm decision to strengthen ties with the former Yugoslav republics’, he said. In his turn Nikolai Bunich expressed his deep gratitude to the Government the President of the Serb Republic and the refinery’s workers who managed on a tight timetable to launch into production the first stage of the refinery with a capacity of 1.2 million tons per year. He expressed confidence that by the year 2010 the second stage of the refinery would be commissioned  which has greater capacity that the first one and then the refinery’s aggregate capacity would amount to 4.2 million tons per year.