"2020 was a challenge for all of us, with the pandemic deeply impacting people and companies worldwide, with the oil & gas industry facing a sharp decrease in demand for petroleum products, highly volatile prices for raw materials, negative refinery margins. Nevertheless, more important than the business concerns was the safety of our employees and customers, and in this sense we took an extended set of measures to ensure their protection. We are proud that during the previous year we successfully conducted the scheduled turnaround of Petromidia, without any safety or environmental incidents, for 45 days. The pandemic even challenged us to innovate and our petrochemical division developed a new range of polymers needed for medical protective equipment. All the 2020 events brought us closer to people and our communities and we managed to offer our support so the battle of authorities and of all medical personnel against the virus to be concluded as fast and as safe as possible." - said Beimbet Shayakhmetov Group CEO.
The Sustainability Report shows the company's role and impact in the Romanian economy, with a focus on Rompetrol Rafinare and its affiliated companies, as well as the business developments in other countries with significant retail operations (Bulgaria, Georgia, and Republic of Moldova). Consolidated results in areas such as corporate governance, human resources (education and development, safety, diversity, human rights), environmental management (emissions reduction, water consumption, and waste), local community investments and relations, market performance are being presented in the complicated context of the pandemic year of 2020.
Despite the extremely difficult context from both the epidemiological and economical standpoints, the Group’s workforce structure evolution continued to follow a stable trend, with a total headcount at the end of the year of 5,557 employees, of 18 different nationalities, 66% of them being located in Romania, the country with the largest base of operations. The age category with the highest representation is the 30-50-year old (43%), followed by the employees over 50 (37%), and those under 30 representing 20%.
The Refining and Petrochemicals sector have a vital role in supporting the national and regional economy, both through ensuring fuels and special products such as bitumen, polymers, hexane, and with great efforts during 2020, the 2 refineries were maintained operational. Significant investments aiming at optimizing performance and generating energy savings were implemented. Among them - the delayed coking unit efficiency project (a value of 1.4 million USD), with a direct impact on improving the energy intensity index to 99.2 (compared to 115 points in 2012), and the LPG recovery unit (with a value of 4.6 million USD) – a system that ensures a substantial reduction of Sulphur dioxide emissions (significantly below the limit imposed by the EU regulations).
The total energy input and the water consumption for both Petromidia and Vega refineries decreased, compared to the previous years.
As a result of the implementation of high-standard safety programs, no fatal incidents occurred in 2020; of a total of 53 HSE incidents occurred in 2020 across Group operations, only 3 were classified as major incidents.
At the level of community engagement and support – over 1 million USD was allocated to support the healthcare system and authorities to manage the medical crisis, help granted either in fuel or in funds for the acquisition of medical equipment, for hospitals in Constanta, Prahova and Bucharest. And in spite of the difficult year, the company managed to continue the traditional partnerships for George Enescu Contest, Civil Society Gala and to organize online internship programs for students with a technical background, site visits under special safety measures, and to recruit the best of them.
To read the full Rompetrol sustainability report about its non-financial performance for 2020, visit https://www.rompetrol.com/ro/rapoarte-de-grup.
The Group uses the GRI sustainability reporting system (Global Reporting Initiative), a benchmark globally recognized as a best practice.