site.btaSeptember 2, 1963: First Bulgarian Gasoline Produced at Neftochim

The history of Bulgarian oil refining started at the petrochemical refinery near the Black Sea city of Burgas, the present-day LUKOIL Neftohim Burgas AD, on September 2, 1963, when the first Bulgarian gasoline was produced.  

The construction of the refinery started by an order of the Council of Ministers dated August 17, 1959. The document stated that a site near the village of Kameno, Burgas Region, had been designated for the construction of an oil refinery with a capacity of 1,000,000 tonnes of oil and the production of 10,000 tonnes of polyethylene.

The oil refinery was designed by Moscow’s Giproneftezavod. Head of the construction was Nikola Ivanov. The groundbreaking took place on November 5, 1960.

Тhe refinery produced its first oxygen on June 21, 1963, which was followed by the production of the first gasoline at the refinery’s atmospheric distillation unit in September. 

The refinery was inaugurated by the first secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party's Central Committee, Todor Zhivkov, on December 30, 1963. The facility’s first director was Gosho Dzhambov.

The first ethylene was produced in 1965 and the first polyethylene in September 1966.

The following decades the oil refining in Bulgaria increased its capacities, adopted the most advanced production solutions, the refinery says on its website.

On October 12, 1999, the oil refinery was privatized and sold to Russian oil giant LUKOIL. It was renamed LUKOIL Neftochim Burgas AD.