History of the Oil Refinery in Rijeka
1882-2010
Velid Đekić
INA – The Sector of Corporate Communications
In Budapest, on October 7, 1882, Hungary’s general credit bank
founded Mineral oil refinery joint-stock corporation
The biggest stockholder
of Hungarian general
credit bank (and the
Mineral oil refinery corp.)
was the Rothschild
banking family from
Wienna
Oil on canvas: baron
Salomon von Rothschild
The Statute of join-stock Corporation:
“the priority is the building of the refinery in Rijeka”
On Nowember 18,
1882, the lot of land
was purchased in
Rijeka suburban area
of Ponsal (today
Mlaka)
That area was the
west industrial zone
of the city (Torpedo
factory, Gas factory,
Shipyard Lazarus,
steam mill, sunflowers
oil factory…)
The refinery’s installations were built in the summer of 1883
by carrying out a facility design, prepared by Mate Glavan
(building of Petroleum port began on December 1882)
xxxxxxxx
Milutin Barač, professional
chemist, Refinery’s builder
and the first director, put
the Refinery into operation
september 13, 1883
The beginning
of the modern Croatian
and Hungarian petroleum
industry
Technical director of five
refinerys of the joint-stock
Corporation, nowadays on
the teritory of five different
European countries
With processing capacity of 60 thousand tons per year, Rijeka
Refinery became the largest on the European continent, and the
first European facility for the industrial conversion of crude oil
Two agitators for refining principal product, lighting petroleum.
Other products: parafin (from 1884), lube oils (1887), gasoline,
hidryr, wax, bitumen, gas oil, coke, phosphates…
The petroleum port in front of the Refinery was able to
accommodative five large sailing wessels (first years with
Pennsilvanian black gold, transported in barrels and boxes)
Refinery’s ship Etelka arrived in petroleum port on 12
December 1892, carrying 3500 tons of oil from Caspian
region, as the first and the only Austro-Hungarian tanker
The emperor Francis Joseph I visited the Refinery 1891.
After him coming the archduke Francis Ferdinand, archduke
Franz Salvator and princess Ann, princess from Toscana,
count Czecheny, count Wickenburg, bey Saadi…
Rijeka in the 1920’s become the nucleus of Italy’s oil production
program, embryo of the state-owned oil company Agip
The Refinery support market expansion in 1925 by creating
shipping company Spem, whit its tankers Prometeo, Lucifero,
Tritone, Poseidone and others
After technological facelifting, Rijeka’s refining
capacity grow to 120 000
tons per year
Italoil was the first Italian
motor oil brand, started to
produced in Rijeka 1926
The Refinery 1939 got a monumental head office in the building
designed in state inspired art Novecento style (when head office
was inaugurated, Refinery visited dictator Mussolini)
Transformed into ruins:
in five bombardments by British-American air forces at the
end of the World War II, some 260 bombs were droped on
the Refinery (weights between 250 and 500 kilos), and
Wehrmacht activated 23 land mines)
The first postwar motor oil
was put on the market in
1952
The king of Yugoslavia’s oil
market: in the beginning of
the 1960’s, a 100 percent of
all lubricants in the country
were made in Rijeka, 75
percent of all bitumen, 95
percent of all waxes
The Rijeka Refinery, with
Sisak Refinery and the
Naftaplin (company for
production of naphta and
gas) formed in 1964 INA,
Croatian oil company
Thanks to the financial and professional forces of the old
refinery on Mlaka, outside of the city were put into operation
new, Urinj facilitiy on November 26, 1965
Urinj and Mlaka divide their tasks: the new facilities is specialised
in producing fuels, old facilities produces lubricants
Intensive development: at the end of 1970’s, capacity grow to eight
million tons (1979 processed a record-setting 5,580 million tons)
Rijeka Refinery was the producer of the first unleaded gasoline in
Yugoslavia, 1984
The government of the Republic Croatia decided to privatize the
state-owned company of INA 2003, and Hungarian company
MOL become one of the owner of INA (today 47,15 percent)
Urinj has started to realisation of a new development cycle, the
first phase will be finish until the end 2010
Innercity position of the old location: in the late summer 2008
Mlaka facility stopped production, except blending of motor oils
The Refinery as landmark of industrial heritage: first smoke-stack
(left, 1883) and the “jounger” smoke-stack (right, 1907)
Refinery’s products on the Industrial Exibition in Rijeka with big
paraffin column (left, 1899), and Paraffin factory on Mlaka
(right, 1884)
The candle or paraffin production on Mlaka dated from 1750’s
Petroleum port on Mlaka (1884), one of the oldest of its kind on
the world: black gold from sailing wessel to modern tankers
Thanks to the first location, Rijeka Refinery is today third oldest
active refinery on the European continent, and fourth in the world